Full name | Club de Alto Rendimiento Especializado Independiente del Valle | |||
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Nickname(s) | Los Negriazules (The black-and-blues) | |||
Founded | 1 March 1958 | |||
Ground | Estadio Banco Guayaquil Quito, Ecuador | |||
Capacity | 12,000 | |||
Chairman | Franklin Tello Núñez | |||
Manager | Javier Gandolfi | |||
League | Ecuadorian Serie A | |||
2023 | Serie A, 3rd of 16 (Finals runner-up) | |||
Website | https://www.independientedelvalle.com/ | |||
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Club de Alto Rendimiento Especializado Independiente del Valle,[1] known simply as Independiente del Valle, is a professional football club based in Sangolquí, Ecuador, that currently plays in the Ecuadorian Serie A.
Founded in 1958, the club plays its home games at Estadio Banco Guayaquil, which opened in March 2021 and has a capacity for 12,000. In the 2013 Serie A Independiente finished runners-up, and they won their first league title in 2021.
In CONMEBOL competitions, it reached the final of the 2016 Copa Libertadores after famously defeating powerhouses River Plate and Boca Juniors,[2] it won its first title in 2019,[3] and three years later the club would become one of the few two-time Sudamericana champions after defeating São Paulo in the 2022 final.
The club is also known for producing youth talent, and a good example of this is the club's U-20 Copa Libertadores title in 2020.[4] Some well-known footballers the club has produced are Jefferson Montero, Junior Sornoza, Arturo Mina, Cristian Ramírez, Gonzalo Plata, Moisés Caicedo, Piero Hincapié, Willian Pacho and Kendry Páez .[5]