Club América

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Club América, short for Club de Fútbol América, was founded in Mexico City in late 1916 by two soccer teams that merged to form a more competitive squad. They decided to name themselves América as they formed on Día del descubrimiento de América, or Columbus Day.

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The team crest features both North and South America centered between the letters C and A (for its name) over a soccer ball. Their colors are yellow, blue, and red, and they have largely gone by the nickname Las Águilas, or The Eagles, since the 1980s. They play their home games in the largest stadium in all of Mexico and Latin America, Estadio Azteca, and one of the largest football stadiums in the world. In 1959, they were bought and are still owned by the Mexican media conglomerate, Grupo Televisa.

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When they first formed, Club América had a roster of native Mexican players, making the team really have to prove itself against other clubs stacked with competitive foreign-born players. But since the 1940s, Club América has excelled in Mexican soccer, winning scores of titles in their league, in Mexico, in the Americas, and around the world. 

Also emerging in the 1940s was their long-standing rivalry with Club Deportivo Guadalajara, or simply Guadalajara. The two teams have similar records, and the spirited games between them are known as El Super Clásico, kind of like the “The Big Game.”

Club América are at once beloved and hated in Mexico, with a 2015 poll finding they were the most popular team in the country, at around 31% of the vote, and most disliked, at about 42%. They embrace their haters, though, as seen in one of the unofficial slogans: Ódiame Más, or a taunting “Hate me more.” Love ’em or hate ’em, Club América matches have the highest attendance in all of Mexico.