Estudiantes (LP)

Club Estudiantes de La Plata (abbreviated: Estudiantes) is a multi-sport organisation in Argentina, located in the city of La Plata, Buenos Aires Province. It was founded as a football club on 4 August 1905, has 42,500 members, and its football team plays in the Argentine Primera División.

Its greatest sporting achievement came in 1968, when it was crowned world champion by defeating Manchester United of England in the final of the Intercontinental Cup. Estudiantes is among the only six Argentine teams that have won the highest club football championship at world level. It also played the finals of that cup in 1969, 1970 and 2009, the latter under the new format of the FIFA Club World Cup.

It began its official football participation in 1906, upon joining the AFA tournaments, and it is the only club in the city of La Plata to have won regular official national and international titles in the professional era. It has won five Argentine Primera División championships in the professional era and one in the amateur era. At the international level, it has won the Copa Libertadores de América four times, making it the third Argentine side to have won it the most times, and the fourth at continental level, together with River Plate. In addition, it is one of the four clubs with the best record in the history of this competition among those that have played more than one edition.

Besides being the institution that broke the hegemony of national Primera División titles held by the so-called "five big ones" in the professional era, in 1967, it has won the 1969 Copa Interamericana and two national cups: the 1944 Copa Escobar and the 1945 Copa de la República (predecessor of the current Copa Argentina). Consequently, it has a total of 14 official titles at the top level, between championships and cups of the AFA, CSF and FIFA. It also played the deciding match of the 1971 Copa Libertadores, the 2008 Sudamericana and the 2010 Recopa Sudamericana, totalling, to date, twelve finals at international level.

Estudiantes is among the five teams in Argentine football with the most appearances in the Primera División (89 seasons in the professional era and 108 including the amateur era), surpassed only by River Plate, Boca Juniors and Independiente, and equalled by Racing Club. Between April and May 2010 it ranked 2nd in the IFFHS world club ranking, and it is one of the Argentine teams considered by FIFA to be a "classic club".

With the winning of the 2009 Copa Libertadores, it became the fourth most successful team in South American football in this competition and played for the first time in its history the FIFA Club World Cup, in the United Arab Emirates, where it was a finalist and the second Argentine team to reach this international stage.