Independiente Medellín

Independiente Medellín was founded on 14 November 1913 under the name of Medellín Foot Ball Club by siblings Alberto, Luis and Rafael Uribe Piedrahíta.[4] The team played its first match with an amateur team called Sporting of Medellín, who defeated them 11–0. In 1948, Medellín joined professional football and played the first edition of the league. Medellín placed seventh out of ten teams, winning seven matches. Their first match was a 4–0 defeat against América de Cali. Their first win was 3–2 against Junior.[5]

The next decade, Medellín signed Peruvian Segundo Castillo Varela, who won the 1939 South American Championship, the first title of his country, in a movement of what was known as El Dorado, when Colombian teams signed many foreign footballers. Medellín did not play in 1952 and 1953 due to economic problems. The team 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. The team won its second title two years later, in 1957, with almost the same players as the previous seasons. José Vicente Grecco was the top scorer of the tournament.

In 1966, Medellín achieved their first ever qualification for the Copa Libertadores. They played against Argentine sides Racing de Avellaneda and River Plate, Bolivian teams 31 de Octubre and Bolívar, and fellow Colombians Santa Fe. They finished fifth out of six in their group and were eliminated. They qualified for the Copa Libertadores again after 27 years in 1994, being eliminated by Junior in the quarter-finals.

After 45 long years of agony, Medellín won its third league title in the 2002 Finalización tournament under manager Víctor Luna, who replaced Reinaldo Rueda halfway through the season due to poor results. Medellín played against Deportivo Pasto in the two-legged final. El Rojo Paisa beat Pasto 2–0 at home in the first leg with goals from Robinson Muñoz and an own goal from Julio César Valencia. In the second leg, Medellín drew 1–1 away from home, with Mauricio Molina scoring Medellín's goal from a free-kick, meaning they became champions with a 3–1 aggregate score.[6] This gave them the right to qualify for the 2003 Copa Libertadores. In the Copa Libertadores, they qualified for the knockout stages by topping their group. They beat Cerro Porteño in the round of 16 and Grêmio in the quarter-finals. They fell to Robinho's Santos 4–2 over two legs in an emotional series where they narrowly missed qualification for the final. In 2009, with the departure of Santiago Escobar as the coach of the team, his assistant, Leonel Álvarez, replaced him to play the 2009 Torneo Finalización, where the team got its fifth title against Atlético Huila. In that season, Jackson Martinez broke the league's top scoring record with 18 goals,[7] a record that was broken again later by forward of Cortuluá, Miguel Borja, in 2016 with 19 goals. In the 2016 season, the club won its sixth league title. They played Junior in the final; the first leg ended 1–1, and the second leg was won by Medellín 2–0, with Christian Marrugo scoring a brace and securing a 3–1 aggregate victory.

Aerial photo of Atlético Nacional fans (Los del Sur) and Medellín fans (Rexixtenxia Norte).

Medellín's greatest rivalry 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" (Mighty 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 fanbases, Rexixtenxia Norte for Medellín and Los Del Sur for Atlético Nacional. There are sometimes fights between these two fanbases, which is why sometimes only the fanbase of one team is allowed entry. The two clubs are named with the location that they occupy in the stadium where Rexixtenxia Norte occupies the section behind the northern goal and Los Del Sur occupy the section behind the southern goal. The first Clásico Paisa was played on 12 September 1948, where Medellín beat Nacional 3–0.

In 2004 Medellín and Nacional qualified for the final of the Apertura tournament; in Antioquia everybody was very excited because this was the first "Paisa" final in the history of short tournaments. The final was played over two legs: in the first leg Medellín won 2–1 with goals scored by Rafael Castillo and Jorge Horacio Serna. The second leg was played on 27 June; it ended 0–0 and Medellín became the champion of the 2004 Apertura, its fourth league title.

Rexixtenxia Norte fans in Estadio Atanasio Girardot during a match.

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 simultaneously. 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. But Oswaldo Mackenzie scored an extremely late goal (45 minutes and 5 seconds of the second half) and gave Junior the 3–2 win 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, a tragic event occurred in Colombian football. During the final games of the season, Medellín tied América de Cali 0–0 at home. During the game, linesman Álvaro Ortega disallowed a Medellín goal, angering many people.[8] Afterwards, a person that had been reportedly sent by Pablo Escobar hunted down the linesman and murdered him. An anonymous caller said they had betted on the game and the disallowed goal made them lose a lot of money. In response, the Colombian Football Federation decided to cancel the rest of the season which left the 1989 league without a winner.[9]

• Copa Libertadores de America: 0

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

2017: First Round

• Copa Conmebol: 0

1995: First Round

As of 29 October 2018[17]

No.	Name	Goals	Country
1	German Cano	129
2	José Vicente Grecco	92
3	Carlos Castro	90
4	Felipe Marino	77
5	Jorge Serna	75
6	Diego Álvarez	69
7	Uriel Cadavid	65
8	Perfecto Rodríguez	64
9	Jackson Martinez	56
10	Jaime Castrillón	55

As of 16 August 2015[17]

No.	Name	Games	Country
1	Héctor Echeverri	457
2	Ricardo Calle	418
3	Roberto Carlos Cortés	351
4	Ponciano Castro	342
5	John Restrepo	335
6	José Zárate	318
7	Álvaro Escobar	315
8	Carlos Castro	283
9	Uriel Cadavid	277
10	Jaime Castrillón	276

This is the list of presidents of Independiente Medellín since its foundation:[18]

• José Luis Restrepo Jaramillo (1913-1928)
• Luis Eduardo Ramírez (1929-1933)
• Jesus Maria Burgos (1933-1938)[19]
• Bernardo Munera A. (1940-1947)
• Federico Kahn (1948-1948)[20]
• Alejandro Cano (1948-1951)
• Ignacio Gómez (1953-1954)
• Javier Arriola (1954-1958)[19]
• Alfonso Arriola (1959-1970)[19]
• Oscar Serna Mejía (1971-1974)
• Gustavo Arbeláez (1974-1974)
• Gabriel Toro Pérez (1975-1977)
• Oscar Serna Mejía (1978-1978)
• Hernán Gómez Agudelo (1978-1979)
• Pablo Correa Ramos (1979-1981)
• Oscar Serna Mejía (1981-1981)
• Héctor Mesa Gómez (1981-1983)
• Oscar Serna Mejía (1984-1985)
• Pablo Correa Ramos (1985 -1985)
• Mario de Jesus Valderrama (1986 -1987)
• Gabriel Toro Pérez (1987-1987)
• Luis Fernando Correa (1987-1987)
• Humberto Betancur (1987-1988)
• Hernán Gómez Agudelo (1988-1989)
• Antonio Mesa Escobar (1989-1991)
• Alberto Montoya Callejas (1991-1992)
• Jesús Aristizábal Guevara (1992-1992)
• Julio Villate (1992-1995)[19]
• Jorge Castillo (1995-1997)[19]
• Mario de Jesus Valderrama (1998-2000)[19]
• Javier Velásquez (2001-2005) [21][22]
• Juan Guillermo Montoya (2005-2006)
• John Cardona Arteaga (2006-2006)
• Carlos Alberto Palacio Acosta (2006-2008)
• Jorge Alberto Osorio (2008-2012)[23]
• Julio Roberto Gómez 2012-2013
• Carlos Mario Mejía (2013-2014)[24]
• Eduardo Silva Meluk (2014-2018)
• Michael Gil Gómez (2019-present)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Deportivo Independiente Medellín.

• Official website