Nacional Montevideo

Club Nacional de Football is a Uruguayan club founded in Montevideo in 1899.

The club has a long and colorful history. It became the first Uruguayan team not supervised by the British or other nations. The team shortly established themselves as the major force in the Uruguayan football. They claimed their first Primera División title already in 1902. All in all, Nacional welcomed 44 league titles to their trophy cabinet as of February 2013. Moreover, the club holds a record of being the most honored Uruguayan team with 124 domestic and 21 international titles.

Nacional have also announced about themselves on the international arena. They became renowned in South America after three Copa Libertadores victories in 1971, 1980 and 1988 and Recopa Sudamericana success in 1989. In 1972 and 1989, the team collected Copa Interamericana trophies and what is the most important, they won the Intercontinental Cup three times.

The team hold memory of their former legendary players like Emilio Álvarez who set up a record of making most appearances for Nacional (511 matches), Héctor Scarone who played for 21 years at the club and Atilio García who graced the club as an all-time greatest goalscorer with 465 goals for Nacional.

Nacional players are often nicknamed the Tricolores (Tricolors) after the white, blue and red colours on their kits and logo. The choice of colors is inspired by the Uruguay’s national hero José Gervasio Artigas flag. Sometimes the footballers are called the Bolsilludos or Bolsos, with ‘bolsillo’ meaning ‘a pocket’ in English. It’s a tidbit that in their early days the team’s jerseys had a pocket on the chest.

The team play their home matches at Estadio Gran Parque Central in Montevideo that can hold up to 25,000 spectators.