Deportes Iquique

Club de Deportes Iquique is a football club from Chile, from the city of Iquique, Tarapacá Region. It was founded on 21 May 1978 and competes in the Primera División of Chile.

The club was born on 21 May 1978, as a consequence of the application of the club Estrella de Chile, after the Iquique selection became amateur champion of Chile. The core of this championship team was used to take part in the 1979 Segunda División de Chile football championship, which it won with two rounds to spare, undefeated at home. The founders of the institution were Néstor Jofré Núñez, Héctor Rojas Carbrera and Ramón Pérez Opazo.

To date the team has won 3 Primera B titles, 3 Copa Chile titles and one Tercera División title.

It has played its home matches at the Estadio Tierra de Campeones since 5 December 1993. Previously the Estadio Municipal de Cavancha was used, which was decommissioned in the early 1990s, in a match against Provincial Osorno, which it lost 0-1.

After a successful 2012 campaign, Deportes Iquique played the Copa Libertadores for the first time in its history in the 2013 edition, qualifying automatically as Chile 3 (for having had the 2nd best score in the annual table), playing the preliminary phase against the team that held the Mexico 3 spot: León (which was also making its historic debut in the Cup), as a result of the draw held on 21 December 2012. The matches of the tie were played on 22 and 29 January 2013, with León at home in the first leg, and after a 2-2 aggregate, it qualified on penalties. In the group stage, it was placed in Group 4 together with Peñarol of Uruguay, Vélez Sarsfield of Argentina and Emelec of Ecuador. Despite defeating Emelec 2-0, it finished in fourth place in the group and was eliminated from the cup.