Atlético Grau

Atlético Grau
Full name Club Atlético Grau
(Grau Athletic Club)
Nickname(s) Los Blancos, Los Albos
Founded June 5, 1919
Ground Estadio Miguel Grau,
Piura
Capacity 25,000
Chairman Percy Ordinola Vieyra
League Peruvian Segunda División
2017 Copa Perú, Runner-up (promoted)
Website Club website

Club Atlético Grau is a Peruvian football club, playing in the city of Piura, Peru. The club was founded in 1919 and play in the Peruvian Segunda División which is the second division of the Peruvian league.

History

The club was founded on June 5, 1919 as Club Miguel Grau by Guillermo Herrera. The club was founded on Calle Tacna in Piura next to the home where peruvian war hero Miguel Grau Seminario was born. The club was one of the founders of the first provincial league in the region, Liga Provincial de Fútbol de Piura in 1922.[1] Grau played in the local amateur league from 1922 to 1965. It contributed nine players to the gold-medal Peruvian national team at the 1961 Bolivarian Games football tournament.[2]

In 1966, the Peruvian Football Federation decided to decentralize the national tournament by inviting and allowing teams from outside Lima and Callao to play in the tournament. The four invited teams were Melgar, Alfonso Ugarte de Chiclín, Octavio Espinosa, and Atlético Grau. The club's debut was against Alianza Lima who it beat 1–0.[3] That year's coach was Ladislao Padosky. Out of the four invitees only Atlético Grau was saved from relegation that year. The team would remain in the highest flight of Peruvian football until 1970.

The team was relegated to the Copa Perú system which it would win a year later in 1972 after defeating Deportivo Carsa, Cienciano, León de Huánuco, Deportivo Junín, and Cultural Juanjuí in La Finalísima, or Final Group Stage, and thus ascending to the Torneo Descentralizado once more along side León de Huánuco. The team was coached by Guillermo Quineche Gil and included Rolando Jiménez, Jorge Albán, Julio Miranda, Julio Ceballos, Manuel Mora, Javier Márquez, Manuel "Meleque" Suárez, Toribio Peña del Rosario, Marcos Murguía, José "Quimbo" Córdova and Reynaldo Rojas in the squad.[4] This has been Grau's only national title to date. The team would remain in the first division for four years completing descent mid-table performances by finishing 7th in 1972, 11th in 1973, 15th in 1974, before being relegated in 1975 after finishing last in 18th place with only 22 points.

Atlético Grau reached the Final Group Stage a second time in 1982 where it finished 2nd behind its fellow Piura Region team Atlético Torino by a goal difference of 3. Atlético Grau returned for its third and longest first division spell in 1986 by invitation during the Regional Leagues era of Peruvian football that saw up to 40 teams compete in the highest division at its peak. The teams were divided into regional tournaments where the highest placed teams would qualify to the national stage which was played by 16 teams. The only two memorable campaigns would be its first in 1986 where the club reached the main national tournament and finished third in its group as well as the final campaign in 1991 where it ended up being relegated to the 1992 Torneo Zonal.

Since then Grau has reached the National Stage of the Copa Perú multiple times during the 21st century. It reached the semi-finals, and quarter-finals in 2000 and 2001 respectively. It would reach the finals in 2002 for the first time during the bracket tournament format against Atlético Universidad from Arequipa with whom it tied 1–1 at home and lost 2–4 away. It would also reach the Round of 16 twice in 2010 and 2011 without being able to advance any further. In the 2011 Torneo Intermedio, the club was eliminated by Universidad César Vallejo in the Round of 16.

In 2004, Atlético Grau fused with 2000 Copa Perú champion Estudiantes de Medicina from Ica due to that club's financial instability. During the merge the club was known as Grau-Estudiantes and played with the colors of Atlético Grau. The merge only lasted for the first half of the 2004 Torneo Descentralizado season. Curiously, Estudiantes de Medicina kept the same kit for the last half of the tournament after the merge was over and during which it was relegated.

The club participated in the Liga Superior de Piura from its creation in 2009 until 2016 during which it was that league's champion four times. The Ligas Superiores were an effort by the Peruvian Football Federation to create a group of elite teams from every region of the country and thus elevate the quality of amateur football.

The 2017 Copa Perú campaign would see Grau become runner-up for the third time in the club's history. The team finished first in its group with 15 points during the first stage of the Departamental Stage. It then would go on to beat regional rivals such as Sport Ingeniero, Sport Chorrillos, Atlético Torino, and Asociación Torino to become the Departamental Champion and thus qualify once more for the National Stage for the first time under its current format. Atlético Grau then finished first out of fifty teams in the country in the league table with 16 points, 19 goals scored, and only 3 goals against. It would then beat Carlos Stein in the Round of 16 by a global score of 3–2. The toughest game of the season came in the quarter-finals against Club José María Arguedas to whom it lost 0–4 in the first leg only to beat it 4–0 with a goal in the very last minutes of the game to advance to La Finalísima because of a better ranking in the League Table.

Once in the Final Group Stage it beat Estudiantil CNI by 2–0.[5] Then it would tie 0–0 against the eventual champion Escuela Municipal Binacional.[6] Thus for the third and final match Atlético Grau saw itself forced to win by as many goals as possible as to remain first on the table with a better goal difference. It won its last game against José Carlos Mariátegui 3–2,[7] which was not enough as Escuela Municipal Binacional defeated Estudiantil CNI 2–0 and thus won the championship by a better goal difference. In the end Grau finished second and became the Peruvian club with the most runner-up campaigns in the history of the Copa Perú as well as winning a berth in the Peruvian Segunda División. The 2018 season will be its first season in the second division of Peruvian soccer where it will face another six teams from the north of the country. Club leaders seemed hesitant to participate in the competition but later confirmed the club's participation.

Rivalries

Atlético Grau has had a long-standing rivalry with Atlético Torino and Alianza Atlético.

Honours

National

Winners (1): 1972
Runner-up (3): 1982, 2002, 2017

Regional

Winners (3): 2000, 2001, 2002
Runner-up (3): 2003, 2010, 2011
Winners (9): 1972, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2009, 2016, 2017
Runner-up (2): 2013, 2014
Winners (5): 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Esta es la historia del Atlético Grau de Piura que hoy cumple 98 años de fundación - El Tiempo". El Tiempo (in Spanish). 5 June 2017. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  2. ↑ Castro, Roberto. "Manuel Suárez: 'Meleque' al alba - De Chalaca | Fútbol para el que la conoce". dechalaca.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  3. ↑ Gabriel, Floyd (14 August 1966). "Atlético Grau 1 – Alianza Lima 0". Historial Blanquiazul (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  4. ↑ "La Copa Perú: Historia". futbolaficionadoenelperu.blogspot.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  5. ↑ Urbina, Diego. "Grau - Estudiantil CNI: Encontró su norte - De Chalaca Copa Perú | Toda la cobertura del fútbol de la Copa Perú". dechalaca.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  6. ↑ Romero, Kenny. "EM Binacional - Grau: El único ausente, el gol - De Chalaca Copa Perú | Toda la cobertura del fútbol de la Copa Perú". dechalaca.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  7. ↑ Romero, Kenny. "Mariátegui - Grau: El claroscuro hecho resultado - De Chalaca Copa Perú | Toda la cobertura del fútbol de la Copa Perú". dechalaca.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 December 2017.
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