Defensor Sporting

Defensor Sporting is a professional football club from Montevideo founded in 1913.

The team made their debut in the top flight in 1915. From the early years they established themselves as a prominent side in the Uruguayan Primera División. Already in 1929, Defensor reached the third-place finish in the top league, behind giants Peñarol and Nacional.

The club enjoyed a meteoric rise in the 1970s when they claimed their first Primera División title in 1976. They welcomed another three domestic titles in 1987, 1991 and 2008. It’s a tidbit that Defensor became the first team to win the title after it was shared by Peñarol and Nacional for 54 seasons. The victory gave them a ticket to the 1977 Copa Libertadores which, however, the team left after the first round.

In the mid 1990s Defensor Sporting made two appearances in the Copa CONMEBOL both of them being short-lived. Regarding other international participation, the team reached the quarter-finals of the Copa Libertadores in 2007 and 2009 and made 4 appearances in the Copa Sudamericana climbing up to the quarter-finals at the utmost.

Defensor has established itself as one of the Uruguayan feeder clubs that produces numerous notable players who then often move abroad. Among them such renowned footballers like Jorge da Silva, Sergio Martínez, Andrés Fleurquin, Darío Silva, Diego Pérez, Martín Cáceres, Maximiliano Pereira, Álvaro González and others who had their spells at Defensor.

Defensor Sporting play their home matches at Estadio Luis Franzini with the capacity of 18,000 seats. The team players are often nicknamed the Violeta or La Viola after the purple color of their kits.