Atletico Junior

Official Name: Corporación Popular Deportiva Atletico Junior

Nickname: Los Tiburones (”The Sharks”)

Founded: 1924

Stadium: Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez:

Capacity: 60000

Seats: 51 000

Built: 1986

City: Barranquilla. Located in the country’s northern coast, Barranquilla is Colombia’s 4th largest city and the most important sea port in the country. Barranquilla is known worldwide for it’s carnival (the second largest in the world after Rio de Janeiro) and for being the hometown of international pop mega-star Shakira.

Championships: 1977, 1980, 1993, 1995, 2004 Also, Junior reached the semifinals in the 1994 CopaLibertadores losing to Velez Sarsfield on penalties. Velez was leaded then by the famous Paraguayan goalkeeper José Luis Chilavert.

Kit: Red and white striped jersey, blue shorts, white socks.

Alternative kits: generally the second kit has been a white one altough other color dominates when the white on the first kit dominates over the red. Recently, it has been a blue kit altough much controversy was stirred when Junior won the 2004 championship sporting an alternative yellow kit for the final game against Nacional in Medellin.

Rivalries:

Junior’s historic traditional rival has always been Union Magdalena from the neighboring city of Santa Marta since traditionally, Junior has been the only team in Barranquilla. Attempts have been made to give Junior a local derby three times, with now defunct clus Sporting de Barranquilla (twice) and Unicosta (moved to Cartagena and rebranded as Real Cartagena).

All-time Stars: Altough one of the biggest stars of world football, Garrincha, had a brief stint at Junior in 1968, the clubs bigges idol of all time continues to be Carlos “El Pibe” Valderrama, whom at the peak of his carrer, at Junior, was the creative force in the sharks midfield that dominated the Colombian scene between 1993 and 1995. While shinning for the national team, Valderrama also took care of leading Junior to the 1994 and 1996 Libertadores Cups before leaving for the then newly-created MLS. Valderrama had notable teammates in that team such a skillfull dribblers Victor Danilo Pacheco and Oswaldo McKenzie and flamboyant strikers Ivan René Valenciano (Famous for being slightly overweight) and Miguel “El Niche” Guerrero who later moved for a long carreer in Italy at Serie A’s Bari. Other former stars who have worn the Junior jersey are the Argentinians Juan Ramon Veron (father of Estudiantes’ Juan Sebastian), Carlos Ischia, Omar Sebastan Perez and Edgardo Bauza; and Colombians Alexis Mendoza, Jose Maria Pazo, Jorge Bolaño and Martín Arzuaga.

Current Roster (From Wikipedia)

For this season, the team’s newest big signing, Geovanny Hernandez comes to inherit the great legacy of Valderrama and Omar Perez.

Current squad

As of 1 August 2007

No. Position Player 1 GK Didier Muñoz 2 DF Francisco Alvear 3 DF Marcelo Mendez 5 DF John Alexander Valencia 6 MF Nicolás Torres 7 FW Alfredo Padilla 9 FW Jorge Díaz 10 MF Giovanny Hernández 12 GK Carlos Perez 13 MF Andres Casañas 14 DF Hayder Palacio 15 DF Cesar Fawcett 18 MF Pedro Ortega 20 FW Emerson Acuña 21 FW Herly Alcazar 22 GK Jose Luís Chunga

No. Position Player 23 DF Jaider Romero 24 DF Hilario Cuenú 25 MF Javier Flórez 26 MF Jorge Banguero – GK Francisco Rodríguez – DF Wainer Canedo – DF Francisco Rodriguez – MF Diego Causado – MF Gabriel Martinez – MF Vladimir Hernández – FW Teófilo Gutiérrez – MF Alexander Del Castillo – MF Dúmar Rueda – DF Roller Cambindo – FW Luís Carlos Ruiz – FW Edwards Jiménez

But before asking Martha for the whole haulover, i want to ask YOU, fellow visitor, if you want this Junior blog to continue with several projects (Team history, match previews and analyses, etc…) or revamp this into a Colombian blog with news about all the 18 (or even 36 if the Copa Colombia goes trough) teams in Colombian football and the National Team. Nowadays, Colombian players are going to all kinds of places in the footballing world and this could be a very useful source of information for soccer aficionados all over the world. So the ball is in your court. Let me know what you do with it.