San Lorenzo

Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro, popularly known as San Lorenzo de Almagro or simply San Lorenzo, is a social and sports club of Argentina, founded on 1 April 1908. Its main activity is men's football, in which it competes in the Argentine Primera División. Basketball, swimming, athletics, hockey, rugby and volleyball, among other sports, are also practised. It is a club that stands out for having been decorated in every sport, counting Olympic champions such as Delfo Cabrera among its ranks. It is part of the education system, with a kindergarten and a forthcoming secondary school.

It is considered one of the five big clubs of Argentine football from the moment the AFA introduced the so-called "proportional vote" in 1937, which consisted of giving greater decision-making power to those clubs with the largest number of members, seniority and titles (Argentine Primera División football statistics).

Its stadium, the Pedro Bidegain, better known as El Nuevo Gasómetro, and the Ciudad Deportiva are located in Comuna 4 of the city of Buenos Aires, in the Nueva Pompeya neighbourhood. The stadium has a capacity of 47,964 spectators and is among the ten largest stadiums in Argentina. Its previous stadium, called El Gasómetro (expropriated by a de facto government), was located in the present-day Boedo neighbourhood and reached a capacity of 76,000 people. Known as the "Wembley of Boedo", it was the stadium used by the Argentina national team.

San Lorenzo de Almagro has won 24 titles. Domestically it has won 15 Primera División championships, 2 national cups and 2 second-division titles (1 in the amateur era and 1 in the professional era). Internationally it has lifted 5 titles, 3 of them at confederation and inter-confederation level (Conmebol and FIFA), and the other two at Río de la Plata regional level (AFA-AUF). It is the fourth most successful team of the professional era (17 titles) and also the third best team in the history of the Argentine Primera División, according to the all-time table.

Throughout its history it was champion of the Supercopa Argentina, was the first champion of the Copa Sudamericana (in 2002) and the only Argentine team to win the Copa Mercosur, in addition to winning the 2014 Copa Libertadores and finishing runner-up in the Club World Cup that same year, which makes it one of the 4 Argentine clubs that have played a FIFA world final.

Furthermore, it is one of the 11 institutions that make up FIFA's gallery of Classic Clubs for Argentina. The club currently has more than 80,000 active members (it also has a number of branches and peñas, located both in Argentina and in various places around the world). The club places emphasis on the development of footballers, since its youth divisions have produced players who would go on to join the Argentina national team and later become champions of international competitions such as the Confederations Cup, the Olympic Games, the Copa América and the World Cup.

It has 69 peñas, of which 138 are distributed throughout Argentina, and 27 abroad, located in: Germany, Andorra, Australia, Chile, 10 in Spain (Andalucía, Barcelona, Fuengirola, Madrid, Oliva, Santander, Tarragona, Tenerife, Zaragoza and Málaga), 5 in the United States (Arizona, Hawaii, Miami, New York and Texas), Italy, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, 2 in the United Kingdom and Uruguay. It currently has more than 80,000 members. San Lorenzo is the third team with the most supporters in the city of Buenos Aires, with a greater concentration in the south.

As a particularity, it is the only club in the world whose shirt is held in the FIFA museum, specifically the one worn on 16 March 2013 against Club Atlético Colón in honour of Pope Francis.

Its historic rival is Huracán, with whom it plays the Clásico Porteño, or the Clásico de barrio ("neighbourhood derby"). The San Lorenzo-Huracán rivalry is a healthy feature of the neighbourhood environment that enriches the cultural and sporting history of Boedo. It was already evident in the 1920s, when on Avenida Boedo the Café Dante was the meeting place of San Lorenzo supporters and the nearby Café El Japonés that of Huracán's.

The other teams considered big (Boca, River, Independiente and Racing) are also historic rivals of the club, and the matches it plays against them are considered classics, since they have an intense and historic rivalry that makes every encounter among the 5 big clubs be experienced with greater intensity than other matches.