Independiente Medellín

Full name

Deportivo Independiente Medellín

Nickname(s)

El Rojo Paisa (The Paisa Red),^[1]
El Poderoso de la Montaña (The Mighty of the Mountain),^[2]
El Equipo del Pueblo (The People's Team),
El Rey de Corazones (The King of Hearts),
El Decano del Fútbol Colombiano (The Dean of Colombian Football)
Medallo
DIM (Deportivo Independiente Medellin)

Founded

14 November 1913

Ground

Estadio Atanasio Girardot
Medellín, Colombia

Capacity

40,043^[3]

Chairman

Eduardo Silva Meluk

Manager

Juan José Peláez

League

Categoría Primera A

2017–I

2nd, Quarterfinals

Website

Club website

Home colours

Away colours

Third colours

Deportivo Independiente Medellín, also known as DIM, is a Colombian professional football team, based in Medellín, that currently plays in the Categoría Primera A. They play their home games at the Atanasio Girardot stadium, which is part of the Atanasio Girardot Sports Complex.

Independiente Medellín has won the Categoría Primera A six times: in 1955, 1957, 2002-II, 2004-I, 2009-II and 2016-I. Its best performance at international level was in 2003, when the team reached the semifinals at the Copa Libertadores.

History

Independiente Medellín was founded on 14 November 1913 under the name of Medellín Foot Ball Club by siblings Alberto, Luis and Rafael Uribe Piedrahíta. The team played its first match with the amateur team Sporting of Medellin, who defeated them 11–0. After several years, Medellín joined professional football and played the first edition of the league. Medellín placed 7 out of 10, winning seven matches. Their first match was a 4–0 defeat against América de Cali.^[4]

The next decade, Medellín signed Peruvian Segundo Castillo Varela, whom won the 1939 South American Championship, the first title of his country, in a movement of what was known as El Dorado, when teams of the league signed a lot of foreign footballers. Medellín won its first title in the 1955 Campeonato Profesional. The team was first with 31 points and just one defeat. Argentine Felipe Marino was the top goalscorer of the team and the tournament, with 22 goals. In 2009, with the departure of Santiago Escobar as the coach of the team, his assistant, Leonel Álvarez, replaced him to play 2009 Torneo Finalización, where the team got its fifth title against Atlético Huila. In that season, the forward, Jackson Martinez, broke a record of the player with the most goal in the league (a record that was broken again later by forward of Cortuluá, Miguel Borja, in 2016).

Independiente Medellín drew an average home attendance of 24,839 (the highest in the league) and their arch-rivals Atlético Nacional drew an average home attendance of 23,602^[5] in the 2017 Apertura.

Rivalries

Medellín's greatest rival is with the city's other major club Atlético Nacional, with whom they share the home stadium Atanasio Girardot. The team is dubbed "El Poderoso de la Montaña" or the powerful of the mountain due to Medellín's geographical location high in the Andean mountains. The rivalry is especially strong due to each team's main support club, Rexixtenxia Norte for Medellín and Los Del Sur for Atlético Nacional. The two clubs are named with the location that they occupy in the stadium where Rexixtenxia occupies the section behind the northern goal and Los Del Sur occupy the section behind the southern goal.

In 2004 Medellín and Nacional classified to the final of the Mustang Cup; in Antioquia everybody was very excited because this was the first "Paisa" final of the history of the short tournaments. This system requires 2 games to be the champion, in the first game, Medellín won 2–1 with a goal of Rafael Castillo in the 87 minute after the goals of Jorge Serna (DIM) and Carlos "Chumi" Alvarez in the first half. The final game was on 27 June, it ended 0–0 and Medellín became the champion of the Colombian National League.

Controversies

Medellín won its third league title after 45 years of agony. However, there were two seasons where Medellín had the title within its reach only to lose it amid great controversy. From its foundation until 2002, the Colombian First Division League had adopted a league format commonly used in European leagues. The format was a year-long tournament where the team at the end of the year in best standing was declared the winner. This format was changed in 2002 to an Apertura-Clausura format where two separate seasons are played during the year to determine two winners. In 1993 during the last game of the year, Medellín and Atlético Junior were fighting for a tight first place. Junior was playing América de Cali at home in Barranquilla while simultaneously Medellín played hometown rivals Atlético Nacional. The games were to start and end at the same time. A Medellín win with a Junior loss or draw would have given Medellín the title. Medellín beat Nacional 1–0 while awaiting the 2–2 game in Barranquilla to end. Medellín players were celebrating with a victory lap and giving interviews with reporters waiting for the final whistle in Barranquilla. After Oswaldo Mackenzie to score an extremely late goal (45 minutes and 5 seconds of the second half) giving Junior the win 3–2 and the title. This was not the first time Medellín had a heartbreaking season, in 1989 a year where Medellín had one of the best teams in the league and was expected to win the title but Junior with legendary players such as Valderrama, Mackenzie, Pacheco and Valenciano. A tragic event occurred in Colombian soccer. During the final games of the season, Medellín tied América de Cali 0–0 at home. During the game, the linesman Álvaro Ortega made a mistake and annulled a Medellín goal. Afterwards, a Medellín sympathizer hunted down the linesman and assassinated him. In response, the Colombian Football Federation decided to cancel the rest of the season leaving the 1989 league without a winner.

Honours

Domestic honours

Official tournaments

Categoría Primera A:

Winners (6): 1955, 1957, 2002–II, 2004–I, 2009–II, 2016–I

Runners-up (9): 1959, 1961, 1966, 1993, 2001, 2008–II, 2012–II, 2014–II, 2015–I

Copa Colombia:

Winners (1): 1981

Runners-up (1): 1955–56

Superliga Colombiana:

Runners-up (1): 2017

Amateur

Copa Jimenez Jaramillo (1): 1923^[6]
Campeonato Nacional (7): 1918, 1920, 1922, 1930, 1936, 1937, 1938^[6]
Campeonato Departamental (8): 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945^[6]

Friendly tournaments

Copa Club Unión: 1942^[7]
Triangular ‘Trofeo Coltejer’: 1955^[8]
Torneo "Medellín sin tugurios": 1983^[9]
Copa Montreal (Canada): 1992
Copa DC United: 1994
Copa Ciudad de Popayan: 2005
Copa Gobernación de Antioquia: 2008, 2010
Copa del Pacífico: 2009^[10]
Runner-up Copa Movilco – Gobernación del Meta: 2009
Runner-up Copa del Pacífico: 2010^[11]

Internationals Participations

Copa Libertadores de America

1967: First Round

1994: Quarter-finals

2003: Semi-finals (Third Place)

2005: First Round

2009: Second Round

2010: Second Round

Copa Sudamericana: 0

2006: First Round

2016: Quarter-finals

Copa Conmebol: 0

1995: First Round

Players

Current squad

As of 4 August 2017

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No.	Position	Player
1	GK	Nelson Ramos
2	DF	Hernán Pertúz
3	DF	Santiago Echeverria
4	DF	Rodrigo Erramuspe
5	DF	Elacio Cordoba
6	MF	Didier Moreno
7	MF	Luis Carlos Arias
8	MF	John Édison Hernández
9	FW	Juan Fernando Caicedo
10	MF	Juan Fernando Quintero (on loan from Porto)
11	FW	Mauricio Cortés
12	GK	Aldair Quintana
13	MF	Daniel Cataño
14	MF	Danilson Córdoba

No.	Position	Player
15	MF	Daniel Restrepo
17	MF	Eduard Atuesta
18	DF	Yulián Gómez
19	FW	Yairo Moreno
20	MF	Mauricio Molina
21	MF	Hernán Hechalar
22	GK	David González
23	FW	Leonardo Fabio Castro
24	DF	Jonathan Lopera
25	FW	Edwin Toloza
26	DF	Juan Camilo Saiz
28	MF	William Parra
30	FW	Valentín Viola

Out on loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No.	Position	Player
—	GK	Carlos Bejarano (at América)
—	DF	Jhonny Mena (at Atlético)
—	MF	Víctor Moreno (at Atlético)
—	DF	Lewis Ochoa (at Millonarios)

No.	Position	Player
—	MF	Javier Calle (at New York City)
—	MF	Cristian Echavarría (at Wisła Kraków)
—	MF	Ever Valencia (at Wisła Kraków)

Top scorers

As of 16 August 2015^[12]

No.	Name	Goals
1	José Vicente Grecco	92
2	Carlos Castro	90
3	Felipe Marino	77
4	Jorge Serna	75
5	Diego Álvarez	69
6	Uriel Cadavid	65
7	Perfecto Rodríguez	64
8	Jackson Martinez	56
9	Jaime Castrillón	55
10	Germán Cano	52

Most games played