Club San José

Club Deportivo San José, known as San José de Oruro or simply San José, is a Bolivian football club from the city of Oruro. It was founded on 19 March 1942 by the engineer Harry Keegan, on the initiative of a group of workers from the San José mine, the locality that gave the institution its name. It currently competes in the Oruro Football Association, the Primera "B", after being relegated in the 2021 Primera División. It plays its home matches at the Jesús Bermúdez stadium, the third largest in the country, with a capacity of 33,000 spectators.

The colors that identify the club are blue and white, reflected in the jersey and the shorts respectively. The jersey and the crest contain the "V" of victory, from which it takes the nickname "bluish V", and above the crest sit 4 stars that reflect the championships won by the club in the Primera División.

It began its football and sporting activity two decades before its founding, until the engineer Harry Keegan promoted the foundation, together with several mine workers. Although the club has taken part in other sporting activities, it has dedicated itself exclusively to football.

At the national level, it has won 4 titles in the Bolivian Primera División and is also the first club from the Department of Oruro, and the first from the interior of the country, to make its debut in the integrated professional tournament organized by the AFLP in 1954, the first to win that national championship in 1955, the fifth team to become professional champion, the second to be champion of the integrated national tournament and also the first non-La Paz team to become professional champion. It also has 12 titles from the Oruro Football Association among its honours, three in the amateur era and nine in the professional era.

It is one of the most traditional Bolivian teams with the longest track record; the club has historically remained in the top category of Bolivian football, except for 3 seasons (2000, 2001 and 2020), being one of the teams in Bolivia with the greatest tradition and history of all time.

At the international level, it is the sixth Bolivian side to have played the most continental cups. It has 12 international appearances in official tournaments organized by the South American Football Confederation. It made its Copa Libertadores debut in 1992 and has since taken part in the tournament on eight occasions. It also has four appearances in the Copa Sudamericana, its best being the 2010 edition, in which it reached the round of 16. In the Copa Libertadores de América it reached the round of 16 in the 1996 edition, its best performance in the continental tournament, also becoming the fifth Bolivian team to advance past a stage in the Copa Libertadores.

It is considered one of the most popular clubs in its country, has a large number of supporters throughout Bolivia and also enjoys wide acceptance among the Bolivian population.

Club San José is the best football team in the department of Oruro and is also the only Oruro club that plays in the Bolivian Primera División, which is why it has the support of most of the Oruro population and one of the largest fan bases in Bolivia; likewise, owing to its history, honours and fan base, it is considered one of the biggest and most popular clubs in Bolivian football.

The institution maintains historic rivalries with several clubs in the country. The most important are against Bolívar, Jorge Wilstermann and The Strongest. Another traditional rivalry is against Oruro Royal, the doyen of Bolivian football, with which it plays the so-called "Clásico Orureño".