Arsenal de Sarandí

The beginning

The club was founded in January 1957 by brothers Héctor and Julio Humberto Grondona. The club were founded near to where the country's military arsenal was housed, which inspired the name. The team's shirt colour is light blue with a diagonal red band (similar to the shirt used by River Plate). The colours were chosen as a combination of the two older clubs in Avellaneda – Racing (light blue) and Independiente (red).

The 1962 Arsenal team, which won the first official title for the institution.

Julio Grondona went on to become president of Independiente, and then, in 1979, president of the Argentine Football Association, until 2014. He was also a vice-president of FIFA. Héctor Grondona, and then son Julio Ricardo, became presidents of Arsenal.

The club's best known former player is Jorge Burruchaga, who started his career at Arsenal in 1979, and had several stints as coach. Burru, as he is nicknamed, scored the winning goal for Argentina in the 1986 FIFA World Cup final against Germany.

Arsenal's football team was promoted to successively higher divisions in 1962, 1986 and 1992, finally reaching the Primera División in 2002.

On 6 September 2006, Arsenal and Spanish club FC Barcelona (Barça) struck a deal whereby in exchange for the option to acquire young players that have not played more than one year in the Arsenal first team, Barça would help to improve Arsenal's infrastructure.^[1]

A member from Barça was to oversee the project, and visit the club on a monthly basis.^[1] This deal, however, fell through in 2007, reportedly because Arsenal could not afford the infrastructure to keep up with the plan.

International tournaments

The club's first appearance in an international tournament was in 2004, when, coached by Burruchaga, Arsenal reached the Quarter-finals of the Copa Sudamericana, eliminating Banfield and River Plate before losing to Bolivian club, Bolívar in its first ever official tie with a non-Argentine team.

Arsenal finished 5th in both the Apertura and Clausura of the 2006–07 season, which gave it enough points to claim a place in the Copa Libertadores 2008, the first time in their history that Arsenal qualified for South America's premier club tournament. The team also qualified for the Copa Sudamericana 2007. Arsenal beat reigning Argentine champions San Lorenzo in the qualifying round to earn a place in the Round of 16 where it faced Brazilian team Goiás. Arsenal won 3–2 in Brazil and recorded a 1–1 draw in the second leg to win the tie 4–3 on aggregate, achieving its first official victory over foreign opposition.

After the victory over the Brazilian team, Arsenal met Mexican side Guadalajara in the quarter-finals, with a 0–0 draw at home, and a 3–1 victory at Estadio Jalisco. Arsenal qualified for the semi-finals, where they met the other Argentine team in the running, River Plate. Both games against River ended 0–0, Arsenal progressing to the final after winning the penalty shootout 4–2, with a number of saves from Mario Cuenca, Arsenal's goalkeeper.

In the first leg of the final Arsenal beat Club América of Mexico 3–2 at Estadio Azteca, giving it a good advantage for the 2nd leg. This advantage was mitigated by the fact that second match could not be held in the Estadio Julio H. Grondona stadium because its capacity of 16,300 did not meet the CONMEBOL criteria of 40,000 for major finals. The game was finally held at the Estadio Juan Domingo Perón in Avellaneda. Another mitigating factor was the fact that captain Carlos Castiglione was suspended for the last game, due to a red card in the first leg.

Arsenal needed to avoid defeat by a two-goal margin, but the match started badly for the Argentine team when Christian Díaz scored an own goal inside the first 20 minutes. José Luis Calderón then hit the woodwork twice for Arsenal. In the 2nd half Arsenal conceded a second goal, but with only 7 minutes remaining Martín Andrizzi scored a famous goal to give Arsenal their first major title on the away goals rule.

On 30 July 2008, Arsenal won its second international cup, the Suruga Bank Championship, which earned to play as Copa Sudamericana champion. The rival was J. League Cup champions Gamba Osaka from Japan. After a hard match, captain Carlos Casteglione scored the only goal with a precise header on the 86th minute of play.

First domestic titles

Arsenal won its first championship on 24 June 2012 after defeating Belgrano de Córdoba 1–0 with a goal scored by Lisandro López.^[2] The squad totalized 38 points over 19 games played, with 11 matches won and only 3 defeats.^[3] Arsenal also became the first team to win a Primera División title after playing in the five divisions that Argentine football league system is made of.^[4] As champions, Arsenal classified for the Supercopa Argentina, a one-match tournament between the Primera División and the Copa Argentina winners. On 7 November 2012 Arsenal defeated Copa Argentina champions Boca Juniors 4–3 by penalties after a 0–0 draw.^[5]

Arsenal won the Copa Argentina on 16 October 2013 by defeating San Lorenzo de Almagro 3–0 in a final match played at the Catamarca Province^[6]

Current squad

As of February 21 2018.^[7]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Maximiliano Velazco (on loan from River Plate) 2 DF Marcos Curado 3 DF Claudio Corvalán 4 DF Sergio Velázquez 5 MF David Drocco 6 MF Facundo Monteseirín (on loan from Lanús) 7 MF Emiliano Purita (on loan from San Lorenzo de Almagro) 8 MF Gonzalo González 10 MF Diego Cháves 11 MF Rodrigo Pollero 12 GK Mauricio Aquino 13 FW Ryduan Palermo 14 DF Mateo Carabajal 15 MF Germán Ferreyra (on loan from Unión La Calera) 16 MF Matías García 17 DF Leonardo Rolón

No. Position Player 18 DF Facundo Enriques 19 FW Gonzalo Gómez 20 FW Bryan Schmidt 21 MF Gabriel Alanís 22 GK Pablo Santillo 23 MF Lucas Wilchez 24 MF Alejo Antilef 25 DF Federico Milo 26 FW Alexis Coman 27 FW Sebastián Lomonaco 28 DF Emiliano Papa 29 FW Facundo Quintana 30 DF Facundo Cardozo MF Iván Bella MF Joaquín Ibáñez MF Lucas Necul

Domestic

International

• Copa Sudamericana (1): 2007
• Suruga Bank Championship (1): 2008