Independiente del Valle

Independiente del Valle
Full nameClub de Alto Rendimiento Especializado Independiente del Valle
Nickname(s)Los Negriazules (The black-and-blues)
Founded1 March 1958; 66 years ago (1958-03-01)
GroundEstadio Banco Guayaquil
Quito, Ecuador
Capacity12,000
ChairmanFranklin Tello Núñez
ManagerJavier Gandolfi
LeagueEcuadorian Serie A
2023Serie A, 3rd of 16 (Finals runner-up)
Websitehttps://www.independientedelvalle.com/

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]

  1. ^ "Historia". independientedelvalle.com. 15 June 2016. Archived from the original on 5 October 2016. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  2. ^ "Move over Leicester and Iceland: Libertadores hopeful Independiente del Valle is true fairy tale of 2016". Goal.com. 20 July 2016. Archived from the original on 14 November 2020.
  3. ^ "Independiente del Valle es campeón de la Copa Sudamericana 2019". Bendito Futbol. 9 November 2019. Archived from the original on 10 November 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2021.
  4. ^ "Independiente del Valle campeón de la CONMEBOL Libertadores Sub 20". conmebol.com (in Spanish). 2 March 2020. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  5. ^ Campo, Carlo (20 July 2016). "From the underground: Independiente del Valle's rise is unprecedented in football". theScore.com. Retrieved 6 September 2021.