UNAM Pumas

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UNAM Pumas
Club logo
Basic data
Surname Club Universidad
Nacional AC
Seat Mexico City , Mexico
founding 1954
Colours Blue-gold
president Rodrigo Ares de Parga
Website pumas.mx
First soccer team
Head coach José Miguel González
Venue Estadio Olímpico Universitario
Places 72,449
league League MX
Clausura 2019 15th place
home
Away
Home match
ticket for the Pumas against Chivas Guadalajara on June 10, 1971

The Club Universidad Nacional AC , known in German-speaking countries as UNAM Pumas or Pumas de la UNAM (the abbreviation UNAM stands for Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ), is a football club from the Mexican capital Mexico City .

The UNAM Pumas play in the Primera División de México and play their home games in the Estadio Olímpico Universitario , the venue for the 1968 Summer Olympics . The stadium has a capacity of 72,449 seats and is located on the premises of the University ( Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - UNAM ).

The club has won the Mexican championship seven times and the CONCACAF Champions Cup three times . The puma’s biggest rivals are America , Cruz Azul and Chivas .

history

The professional team of the UNAM was founded on August 28, 1954 and has played permanently in the Primera División , the top division in Mexican club football , since its promotion in 1962 . In its early years, the university team had little popularity and little acceptance outside the university campus, especially since the athletic performance initially left a lot to be desired. Up to and including 1974/75, the Pumas only occupied places in the middle or in the lower area of ​​the table. The only two positive exceptions date from the 1967/68 seasons, when UNAM was runner-up and finished 4th in the following season.

With the successes occurring in the late 1970s, interest in the club also increased, which had long since developed into the second most popular soccer team in Mexico City and the third most popular club in Mexico (behind Mexico's most popular club Chivas Guadalajara and traditional arch-rival America ).

With América the Pumas had already delivered an exciting head-to-head race in the championship in the three consecutive seasons between 1975/76 and 1977/78, twice by América and once by the Pumas as the team with the highest points in the regular championship round ( Superlider ) has ended. The designation "Superlider" is only an honorary title, because the actual championship fight only begins in the play-offs ( called Liguilla in Mexico ), where the two teams did not meet in those years. Still, those years, when Pumas and Águilas were arguably the two strongest teams in Mexico, contributed a lot to the development of their nasty rivalry.

In the 1978/79 and 1980/81 seasons, their rivalry with the other major city rival Cruz Azul discharged in each case in the championship finals. After Cruz Azul prevailed in the first comparison (with 0: 0 and 2: 0), the Pumas retained the upper hand two years later (with 0: 1 and 4: 1). Both teams met four times in the play-offs in the ten seasons between 1994/95 and 2003/04, whereby the Pumas were able to prevail three times and won their home games 3-2.

The incontrovertible hostility with America then arose in 1984/85 at the latest. The Pumas had finished that season again as superliders and had advanced to the final, which this time had to be contested against America.

After a 1-1 draw in the Aztec Stadium , the rush for the second leg in the Estadio Ciudad Universitaria , the university and Olympic stadium, was enormous. Many people wanted to gain access to the stadium without a ticket. Nine people were crushed to death and a few dozen injured in the uncoordinated crowd. The main culprit was the “porros”, a type of urban pseudo-student who spent a lot of time outside the classroom and neither studied nor earned any money. This incident happened just two weeks after the Heysel tragedy .

The 1985 final second leg ended goalless; Mainly because America - actually rather untypical for them - relied on a strong defensive in this game in order to reach a third game. This took place in Querétaro and was won 3-1 by America. But only because of some blatant wrong decisions. Because the Pumas were denied three clear penalties, while America got a penalty. The referee was officially acquitted of the América bribery but was never supposed to lead a game again.

In the final of the 1987/88 season, Pumas and Águilas faced each other again. This time too, America retained the upper hand (0: 1 and 4: 1).

True to the motto "every three years", there was also a final pairing between these two teams in 1990/91. The Pumas had an excellent season behind them, which they finished as superliders with a proud record of 55-21 points and an advantage of 8 points over runner-up Monterrey . 25 out of 38 games were won, an excellent record. The dominance also continued in the play-offs, where they sovereignly won 1-0 and 5-1 over Morelia and 1-0 and 2-0 against Puebla and reached the final. Although they lost 1-0 to America in the second leg on their own territory, they were still champions due to the away goals rule that applied this season because the first leg at the Aztec Stadium was decided 3-2 in their favor.

But after this championship, the 1990s were quite unsuccessful. For the first time in the Apertura 1998/99 the Pumas were able to reach a semi-finals again, which should happen more often from then on.

The most successful year since their heyday from 1977 to 1991 (in which the Pumas were three times champions and CONCACAF Champions Cup winners) was 2004, when the Pumas under coach Hugo Sánchez both championships (the Clausura 2003/04 and the Apertura 2004 / 05) could win. In 2005, the Pumas triumphed in the Copa Sudamericana . On the way to the final you had Corinthians São Paulo , the winner of the first FIFA Club World Cup in 2000 (with 1: 2 and 3: 0) and the top Argentine team Vélez Sársfield (with 0: 0 and 4: 0) relatively clearly out of the way. In the finals themselves, they lost a bit unfortunate 3: 4 on penalties against the most successful team in South America so far in the new millennium , the Boca Juniors , after the return legs had ended 1-1.

In the recent history of the club, two more championships have been won. In the final of the Clausura 2009 the Pumas were able to prevail against Pachuca after they had fought for third place in the table in the regular season. Since then, the club has relied strategically primarily on young players from its own ranks and almost no more players have been bought. With this reorientation and the commitment of veteran Pumas players such as Leandro Augusto or Darío Verón, the Pumas were also able to win the 2011 Clausura title by beating Monarcas Morelia 2-1 in the final in front of a home crowd.

Historical logos

  • Historical logo 1

successes

Special teams

The championship teams

The "best Pumas team of all time"

The Mexican sports newspaper Récord has identified the following “dream team” of the Club Universidad Nacional with the most important players in the history of the Pumas (the years in brackets describe the club membership):

Jorge Campos (1988–1995, 1998–2000, 2001/02) - Raúl Servín (1980–1989), Darío Verón (since 2003), Claudio Suárez (1988–1996), Arturo Vázquez Ayala (1970–1979) - Ricardo Ferretti (1978–1985, 1987/88, 1990/91), Miguel España (1983–1994 and 2001–2003), Manuel Negrete (1979–1986, 1987–1990, 1991/92) - Cabinho (1974–1979), Hugo Sánchez (1976–1981), Juan José Muñante (1976–1980).

Pumas trainers

(incomplete)

Well-known former players

(Selection)

various

  • The most important fan group of the cougars is called La Rebel .
  • The most important branch team of Pumas is Pumas Morelos .

Known fans

Well-known fans of Pumas include:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Afición azul y oro (Spanish)
  2. ↑ Jorge Gomez Anguas: A history of football in Mexico (Heart Books, Rijmenam, Belgium 1995), page 47
  3. ↑ Chris Taylor: Samba, Coca und das Runde Leder (Stuttgart 1998), p. 209
  4. ↑ Récord: Te presentamos el 11 ideal histórico de Pumas (Spanish; article from October 19, 2012)
  5. ↑ 11 aficionados famosos a la UNAM (Spanish; accessed on August 7, 2018)