Estudiantes de Mérida F.C.

Everything start when Mérida conquest both Junior Championships made in this city during the years of 1969 and 1970. This caught the fever to aspire to have a professional football team in the tourist city Venezuela quintessential student. The deceased Don José Arano (Basque birth) and Luis Ghersi Govea, performed the first legal contacts with Major League Soccer and the Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF). Once the appropriate steps in the city of Caracas, contact Guillermo Soto Rosa, who in turn communicates with other friends, also engineers, Ramon Chiarelli and Gabriel Angarita, who show interest in the nascent idea and spread of the emotive idea in Mérida: Luis Jimenez Ron, Amadis Canizales, Daniel D 'Jesus Trejo, Eli Joseph Camacho and Fausto Ghiraldini, among others.

By then, join institutional and public efforts, the then president of the University of Los Andes, Pedro Rincón Gutiérrez and Dr. Briceno Ferrigni, then Governor of the state of Mérida, who together perform all the steps of rigor to the entities coordinating professional soccer in Venezuela. At the same time, running the works related to the improvement and expansion of the football stadium facilities most of Mérida, Guillermo Soto Rosa Stadium, located in a popular area of the city between the Santa Juana, Pie del Llano, santa Monica, Cuatricentenario and Campo de Oro. The first team's headquarters, is a modest apartment, where on April 4, 1971, meet 58 people in order to form the first Board by then stay composed by Luis A. Ron Jimenez, Amadis Canizales, Jorge Pereyra, Don José Arano, Uzcátegui Spirit, Carmelo Colella and Elio Scanu.

Membership with Antonio J. La Hoz as coach. the uniform would be a striped shirt red and white, blue pants, white socks with horizontal stripes, design inspired by the colors of the Colegio San José de Mérida, as the majority of the promoters of the team had former students of that campus. Was defined as a second uniform shirt with green and white stripes, white shorts and white socks.

The name of the institution is as Football Club Estudiantes de Mérida and the day May 17, 1971, the official request is made to the Major League Soccer for the registration of the Club. The official team presentation is made on September 4, 1971, at a popular hotel in the city. Until the 12th of October of the same year at 11:00 am, appears in the programmed Guillermo Soto Rosa Stadium, the red-white currency captained by number 10 Luis Mendoza. Students counted as a godfather for release sports, Deportivo Portugues from the capital of the country, who fell 2 goals to 1, with goals scored by Uruguayan Chiazzaro José and Brazilian César Márquez.

For 1999 occupies the 5th place as the best team in South America and ranked 43 in the world. He has won two league titles (1980 and 1985), two Copa Venezuela (1971 and 1975), has been sub-national champion five times and has participated in several Copa Libertadores and Copa Conmebol, Copa Merconorte.

Later, on May 14, 2006 the team, after losing 4-2 against Deportivo Italmaracaibo, went to Second Division, after 35 years of being in the First Division. His return to the first division occurs in the month of May 2007, thanks to the expansion of First Division clubs 10-18.

• Primera División Venezolana: 2

Amateur Era (0):

Professional Era (2): 1980, 1985

• Segunda División Venezolana: 0
• Segunda División B Venezolana: 0
• Tercera División Venezolana: 0
• Copa de Venezuela: 2

1971, 1975

• Copa Libertadores: 7 appearances

1977: First Round

1978: First Round

1981: First Round

1982: First Round

1987: First Round

1999: Quarter-Finals

2003: Preliminary Round

• Copa Sudamericana: 1 appearance

2018: First stage

• Recopa Sudamericana: 0 appearances

 :

• Copa CONMEBOL: 1 appearance

1999: Quarter-Finals

• Copa Merconorte: 1 appearance

2000: First Round

The club's colors are red, white and blue.

The club plays their home matches at Estadio Metropolitano de Mérida, which seats 42,200 people and was inaugurated on December 7, 2005. The club previously played their home matches at Estadio Guillermo Soto Rosa, which seats 14,000 and was inaugurated on September 5, 1969.

As of 23 October 2020

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

No. Pos. Nation Player 1 GK  VEN Alejandro Araque 2 DF  VEN Omar Labrador 3 DF  VEN Daniel Linárez 4 DF  VEN Henry Plazas 5 DF  VEN Galileo Del Castillo 6 DF  VEN Germán Contreras 7 MF  VEN Christian Flores 8 MF  VEN Yorwin Lobo 9 FW  MEX Luz Rodríguez 10 MF  VEN Jesús Meza 12 GK  VEN Aldair Peña 13 DF  VEN José Luis Marrufo 14 MF  VEN Ayrton Páez 15 MF  VEN Cristhian Rivas 16 FW  NCA Jaime Moreno 17 FW  VEN Armando Araque 18 MF  VEN Diego Guillén

No. Pos. Nation Player 20 DF  VEN José Manríquez 21 FW  COL Wilson Mena 22 GK  ARG Matías Draghi 23 DF  VEN Edison Penilla 24 DF  VEN Ronaldo Rivas 25 DF  VEN Sebastián Uzcátegui 26 MF  VEN Johandry Hidalgo 27 FW  VEN José Rivas 29 FW  VEN Edson Rivas 32 FW  VEN Ever Urrutia 33 MF  VEN Gregory Materán 34 FW  VEN Wilson Barrios 40 GK  VEN David Contreras — MF  VEN Adrián Valero — FW  VEN Edward Morillo — DF  URU Álvaro Pereira

• Rafael Dudamel (Oct 15, 2010–Dec 15, 2013)
• Manuel Plascencia (July 16, 2013–Jan 28, 2014)
• Francisco "El Pacho" Moreno (201?–)

• Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent Spanish-language Wikipedia article and from the equivalent French-language Wikipedia article (retrieved January 16, 2006).

• Media related to Estudiantes de Mérida Fútbol Club at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website (in Spanish)