Argentinos Juniors is an
Argentine
football club,
founded in La Paternal, Buenos Aires
, on 15 August 1904. The club was
originally called the “Martyrs of Chicago”, in homage to the eight
anarchists imprisoned or hanged after the
1886 Haymarket
Riot
in Chicago
.
Kit
The team plays in a red top with a diagonal white sash running from
the right shoulder to the left waist. Over recent years they have
also used a plain red top, a red top with a single vertical white
stripe and a red top that gradually fades to white at the bottom.
The club have used both red or white shorts and socks over the
years, their current first kit features white shorts and red socks.
The club used a number of different colors in their early years,
but in 1917 they settled on red, inspired by the club's
socialist beginnings.
Stadium
The club
currently plays in Estadio Diego Armando Maradona
which is also often referred to as La
Paternal after La Paternal district of Buenos Aires
where the club is based. The stadium was
named after
Diego Maradona because he
started his career in the Argentinos youth team.
Between 1983 and 2003
Argentinos had a groundshare with Ferro Carril Oeste at Estadio Ricardo
Etcheverry
. The club has had a number of other homes in
their history, all based in the city of Buenos Aires.
Nicknames
The club, which is nicknamed
Bichos Colorados (Red Bugs),
is one of the most prolific sources of football players in
Argentina.
Diego Maradona,
Fernando Redondo and
Juan Román Riquelme being some of
the most famous players who began their career at the club. This
ability to keep producing world class players has given them the
nickname
El Semillero, meaning the
Nursery or the "Seed Garden".
History
Early years
The club
was founded in the Villa
Crespo
neighbourhood of Buenos Aires on August 14, 1904. In 1905 it joined the
"Fútbol de competencia" league playing its first game against Club
La Prensa, which it lost by a catastrophic scoreline of 12-1. After
several moves in their first few years Argentinos settled in
Villa Urquiza.
In 1909
Argentinos gained affiliation with the Argentine
Football Association
, but in 1912 they were involved in the first schism
in Argentine football when
they joined the breakaway "Federación de Fútbol". In 1920
they played a promotion playoff with
El
Porvenir but lost 3-2 on aggregate, one year later they secured
promotion to the Primera, and made their debut in the 1922 season,
where they competed well, finishing in 6th place.
The club endured a terrible season in 1925, but they followed it up
in 1926 with a 2nd place finish behind champions
Boca Juniors.
In 1927 the two separate football associations reunified and
Argentinos played in a massive 34 team league, the league was
expanded to 36 and Argentinos managed to keep their place until
1930.
1931-1966
In 1931 Argentinos joined 17 other clubs in forming a breakaway
professional league, a move that marked the beginning of the
professional era of Argentine football. In 1934 the Amateur league
was broken up and Argentina once again had a unified
first division. As part of this
move, Argentinos Juniors were unified with
Club Atlético Atlanta, the season
progressed badly, and after 25 rounds the union was dissolved due
to financial irregularities in the Atlanta books. Argentinos
Juniors played on but finished bottom of the league with only 2
wins from 39 games.
Argentinos were allowed to keep their place in the Primera, but
succumbed to relegation in 1937 after finishing second from bottom
of the table.
In 1940 Argentinos enjoyed a good campaign in a new stadium, which
culminated in winning the
2nd
division, but the club were not allowed promotion because their
ground did not meet the requirements of the Primera División, and
AFA would not make an exception for Argentinos to play at another
ground, even though they had done so for several other promoted
clubs in previous seasons.
In 1943
Hector Ingunza made his first
appearance for the club, he went on to become the top scorer in the
clubs history with 143 goals in official games between 1943 and
1946.
In 1948 Argentinos suffered another injustice at the hands of AFA,
they had qualified to the end of season playoff for promotion to
the Primera and were top of the league after 7 of the 11 rounds
when a players strike interrupted the competition. AFA eventually
abandoned the playoff and gave automatic promotion to the teams
that had been relegated in 1946 and 1947 instead.
In 1954 Argentinos finished in 2nd place in the league having
scored 88 goals in the league, making them the highest scoring team
by far. In 1955 they finally secured promotion back to the Primera
after 18 long years. They returned to top flight competition in
1956 and after finishing near the bottom of the table that year,
they secured comfortable mid-table finishes over the next few
seasons.
In 1960 there was a complete overhaul of the Argentinos Juniors
team, the new team performed well and it was only on the last game
of the season that they missed out on the championship. They
finished in 3rd place, only 2 points below the eventual champions
Independiente. Although they didn't win the championship, the team
is fondly remembered by those old enough to have seen them play. In
the following years the team did not live up to expectations,
rarely finishing in the top half of the table.
1967-1984
1967 saw the introduction of the
Metropolitano and
Nacional system, Argentinos struggled
to adapt and only just survived relegation from the Metropolitano
in the inaugural season. Over the next few seasons Argentinos had
to play in several short tournaments to earn the right to stay in
the Metropolitano and were far from qualifying to play in the
Nacional.
From 1971 Argentinos stabilised themselves and avoided the lower
positions in the table, they also qualified to play in the expanded
Nacional tournaments of the early '70s, they performed well enough,
but failed to qualify for the final stages.
In 1975 Argentinos Juniors finished 19th of 20 teams, but were
extremely fortune in that no teams were relegated from the
Metropolitano that season.
On Thursday 20 October 1976, fans of Argentinos Juniors and a few
travelling
Talleres fans
witnessed probably the most important debut in the history of
Argentine football. With Argentinos losing 1-0 the manager,
Juan Carlos Montes sent on a
fifteen year old debutant named
Diego Armando Maradona making him the
leagues youngest ever player until his record was broken by
Sergio Agüero in 2003. Argentinos
lost the game but Diego went on to propel the club forward over the
next four years and to achieve great successes with other clubs and
the
Argentina national
team. In the 1979 Metropolitano Diego became the youngest
topscorer in the history of Argentine football with 14 goals, he
went on to become
top scorer in the
following three tournaments, matching
José Sanfilippo's record of being
Argentina's topscorer on four consecutive occasions. In 1980
Argentinos finished 2nd in the Metropolitano and reached the
quarter finals of the Nacional. The 2nd place finish was their best
since the beginning of the professional era in 1931.
In 1981 Maradona was sold to
Boca
Juniors in 1981 for a fee of £1million. Maradona never won a
title with Argentinos but his massive transfer fee allowed
Argentinos to strengthen their squad for the years ahead, although
his departure almost cost Argentinos their place in the top flight,
they needed a last day win over
San Lorenzo to
avoid relegation at San Lorenzo's expense.
In 1982 Argentinos failed to progress to the latter stages of the
nacional and finished in mid table in the Metropolitano.
The season
of 1983 saw a distinct improvement under the leadership of Ángel Labruna, he had brought in a new
group of players a new system of play and moved them to the
Estadio Ricardo
Etcheverry of Ferro Carril
Oeste to give the team a wider pitch to play on. The
team were making good progress, they had made it to the semi-finals
of the Nacional and were in the middle of the Metropolitano when
Labruna died suddenly on 20 September 1983, the team held
themselves together under new manager
Roberto Saporiti for a mid table finish.
They then made it to the Quarter-finals of the Nacional in
1984.
Metropolitano 1984
Saporiti had kept faith with Labruna's attacking style of play, and
largely retained the same group of players. Argentinos managed to
win the title by a single point from landlords Ferro Carril Oeste
on the last day of the season. This was the first major title in
the clubs history and gave them automatic qualification to the
Copa Libertadores in
1985.
Nacional 1985
Saporiti was replaced as manager by
José Yudica who had worked wonders in
previous seasons including leading unfashionable
Quilmes Atlético Club to the
Metropolitano championship in 1978 and rescuing San Lorenzo from
the 2nd division at the first time of asking. The Nacional
championship of 1985 was the last, and featured by far the most
complicated structure in the history of the Argentine Primera. Once
the competition reached the knockout stage, the eliminated teams
got another chance to play on in the losers knockout. Argentinos
won the winners group with a 4-2 win on penalteis against
Vélez Sársfield
after a 2-2 aggregate score, but Velez got another chance to play
for the title after beating River Plate in the losers final.
Argentinos and Velez played for the title and after a 1-1 draw,
Velez won the penalty shootout, but because they has come from the
losers group a new game was needed, which Argentinos won 2-1.
Copa Libertadores 1985
The
1985 edition of the Copa
Libertadores saw the inclusion of three Argentine teams,
Independiente as
the previous years champions,
Ferro
Carril Oeste as the champions of the 1984 Nacional and
Argentinos Juniors as the champions of the 1984
Metropolitano.
In the
first round Argentinos and Ferro were put into the same group with
Brazilian
teams Fluminese and Vasco de Gama. The
group was dominated by the two Argentine teams, who finished level
on points at the top of the group. This necessitated a playoff game
to determine which team would pass to the semi-final, which
Argentinos won 3-1.
In the
semi-final round Argentinos found themselves in a group of three
with Independiete who had received a bye to the semi-finals and
club Blooming of Bolivia
.
Argentinos progressed thanks to a 2-1 win in
Independiente's stadium
in the last fixture of the group.
The
final was against
América de Cali of Colombia
, after a 1-0 home win each, the final went to a
deciding game in Asunción
, Paraguay
. The game finished 1-1 and Argentinos won
5-4 on
penalties. It was only the
second time the competition had been decided on penalties, and
marked the finest achievement in the history of Argentinos
Juniors.
The players involved in the final playoff game were:
|
- First eleven
|
|
- Used as substitutes
- Unused substitutes
- Played in earlier rounds
|
- Manager: José
Yudica
1985-present
In 1985
Argentinos Juniors represented South America in the Intercontinental Cup against
Juventus F.C. of Italy
, the game
ended in a 2-2 draw, but Argentinos lost in the penalty
shootout. Argentinos went on to win another trophy in 1986.
They won
1-0 in the Copa Interamericana
against Defence Force of Trinidad and
Tobago
.
Argentinos qualified for the 1986 Copa Libertadores, receiving a
bye to the second round as holders, but were elimnated in the group
of three, behind River Plate of Argentina who went on to win the
tournament.
1985-1986 saw the start of Eupropean-style seasons. Argentinos
performed well, finishing in the top half of the table for most of
the rest of the 1980s and never fearing relegation, although they
also never really challenged as title contenders.
By 1988 the majority of the Libertadores champions had gone and
Argentinos were a vastly different team.
On 20
November 1988 the club set a world record for the longest penalty
shootout, which occurred in a league match against Racing
Club
, the shootout finished 20:19 to Argentinos after 44
penalties. The rules of the time granted an extra point for
the winner on penalties after a drawn match.
1990 saw the introduction of the
Apertura and Clausura system in
Argentina, Argentinos enjoyed a number of decent finishes, although
they finished 19th in Apertura 1992 and were saved from relegation
by the points averaging system.
Argentinos finished 20th and last in Clausura 1995 and were again
saved by the points averaging system, the next year they finished
bottom of the clausura and were relegated from the primera only
eleven years after being champions of South America.
In the 1996-1997 season Argentinos won the second division under
manager
Osvaldo Sosa to bounce back
into the Primera at the first attempt. They remained in the top
flight until they were relegated again after another sequence of
poor finishes, the best finish they managed in that period was 4th
in Clausura 2001.
Argentinos spent two seasons in the
2nd division before returning in
2004 through a
playoff
with
Talleres de Córdoba
who had finished the season in 3rd place in the Primera.
Argentinos spent a couple of nervous seasons narrowly avoiding
relegation in
2005 by
beating
Atlético de Rafaela
in a
playoff.
The following season they survived a
playoff
against
Huracán. The
2006-2007 season saw
Argentinos finally claw their way clear from the relegation places
after over two years of flirting with relegation.
In 2008 Argentinos qualified for an international tournament for
the first time in 12 years by quilifying for
Copa Sudamericana 2008. They
eventually progressed to the semi-final where they were eliminated
by
Estudiantes de La Plata
over
two legs despite beating them
5-0 in the league game which was sandwiched between the cup
ties.
Honours
League
Cups
Other achievements
- Amateur First Division Runners-up: 1926
- Amateur First Division's Copa Competencia Runners-up: 1925
- Metropolitano Runners-up: 1980
Current squad
Notable players
- To appear in this section a player must have played at
least 50 games for the club or set a club record
Famous graduates of "El Semillero"
Former Coaches
- Sergio Daniel Batista (2001-2004)
- Gregorio Pérez (2004-2006)
- Nestor Gorosito (2006-2008)
- Ricardo Caruso Lombardi (2008)
- Claudio Vivas (2009-2009)
- Claudio Borghi (2009-present)
References
- Argentinos Juniors official website
- rsssf Argentine 2nd level 1940
- Argentinos Juniors official website
External links
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