Audax Italiano

Audax Italiano is a professional football club from Chile, based in the commune of La Florida, in the city of Santiago. It was founded on 30 November 1910 by members of the Italian community resident in Chile as a cycling club called Audax Club Ciclista Italiano. The word "Audax" comes from Latin and means "bold", which was a term frequently applied to cyclists in the early 20th century.

In 1921 the brothers Domingo and Tito Fruttero founded the club's football section. That same year this section entered the Liga Metropolitana, which it won in 1924. In 1927 Audax began to take part in the Liga Central, called the Asociación de Football de Santiago from 1930, in which it was crowned champion of its División de Honor in 1931 and 1932. Although it began as a cycling club and ventured into other sporting disciplines, for some years now it has devoted itself exclusively to football.

In 1933 Audax Italiano was part of the group of clubs that founded the Primera División, the tournament in which it plays and of which it has been crowned champion in 1936, 1946, 1948 and 1957, thus being the sixth team with the most national titles, together with Magallanes and Everton.

Audax Italiano plays its home matches at the Estadio Bicentenario de La Florida, a venue located in the commune of the same name, which has a capacity of 12,000 spectators. The stadium was inaugurated in 1986 and completely rebuilt in 2008 for that year's women's football World Cup, at which it hosted, among others, the final and the opening match.

Its traditional rivals are Unión Española and Palestino, against whom it plays the so-called clásico de colonias. In addition, it formerly played the so-called "clásico criollo" with Colo-Colo, which received that name from the fact that the two institutions were the only ones at that time that used only national players.