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Club Olimpia is a Paraguayan professional sports club based in the city of Asunción. It promotes the practice of various sports, with most importance given to the football, Rugby union and basketball sides, football being the most successful.
Founded in 1902, the club's name stems from the idea of its principal founding member, William Paats, a Dutchman based in Paraguay, who is considered the father of Paraguayan football. Internationally, the club is referred to as Olimpia Asunción in order to distinguish it from other Latin American football clubs of the same name.
Olimpia has won a record 47 Primera División titles to date, including a unique record run of winning the league six consecutive times. The only Paraguayan club to win a CONMEBOL title, Olimpia has won three Copa Libertadores — and has been runner-up four times — as well as two Recopa Sudamericanas, one Intercontinental Cup, one Copa Interamericana, and one Supercopa Sudamericana, a competition it won automatically in 1991. In 1979 it achieved the "quadruple", the rare feat of winning all possible official titles on offer that year: the Paraguayan championship, the Copa Libertadores, the Copa Interamericana and the Intercontinental Cup. They have also never been relegated.
Olimpia contests the Paraguayan football derby (clásico) with Cerro Porteño, the "clásico añejo" (Old Derby) with Guaraní, and the "black and white derby" with Club Libertad.
Olimpia played their home games at the Estadio Osvaldo Domínguez Dibb, also known as "El Bosque" (The Forest) and "Para Uno", before the demolition of the venue. They moved to the Estadio Defensores del Chaco after the demolition. Basketball and other sports, have their own sports centre named after former president Osvaldo Dominguez Dibb as well, in the same site as the stadium in the Mariscal López neighborhood.
The original kit was composed of a black shirt with the word "Olimpia" written in white across the chest and white shorts. Later, white and black were adopted as the colours for the team, with a white shirt with a horizontal black stripe. The alternate jersey is black with a white stripe, though in 2008 the stripe is vertical.
After a few championships won during the 1910s, Olimpia's next big accomplishment were the three championships in a row in 1927, 1928, 1929 becoming the first Paraguayan team to win three consecutive titles. Olimpia repeated the same feat by becoming champions in 1936, 1937, 1938. The 1940s presented a rough time for Olimpia with bad results for most of the decade; but despite that Olimpia won two titles (1947 and 1948).
The club also had a first taste of international success in 1960 in the first edition of the Copa Libertadores de América by reaching the finals in which they lost to Peñarol. Ironically, the winning goal for Peñarol in the finals was scored by Uruguayan Luis Cubilla, who later became a coach and led Olimpia to several national and international championships.
In that same year, Olimpia won the Copa Interamericana by defeating FAS of El Salvador by an aggregate of 8–3 (first leg result: 3–3, second leg result: 5–0) and the Intercontinental Cup by defeating the UEFA Champions League runner-up Malmö of Sweden 3–1 on aggregate.
Olimpia's success was not limited to the international scene: from 1978 to 1983 the team won a record six-straight Paraguayan league championships (beating their own record set in 1956–60 of five consecutive titles).
Not content with the Libertadores title itself, Olimpia went on to win the 1990 Supercopa Sudamericana, a tournament reserved only for the best teams in South America. They did this by defeating Nacional de Montevideo in the finals with a 6–3 aggregate score. In that same year, Olimpia played the Intercontinental Cup final in Japan against the European champion AC Milan, losing 3–0. Because Olimpia won both the Libertadores and Supercopa in the same year, they automatically won the 1990 Recopa Sudamericana. The achievement of all the mentioned international titles in 1979 and 1990 established Olimpia as one of the most respected and traditional teams in South American football. In 1991 Olimpia reached the Copa Libertadores finals for the third time in a row but lost against Colo-Colo 3–0. Amongst other trophies won by Olimpia at the time, the club were crowned undefeated champions of the 1992 Torneo República, with Roberto Perfumo as team manager.
From 1994 to 1999, Olimpia would produce the debut of several youth team graduates and future national team players, such as Richart Baez (1993), Denis Caniza (1994), Carlos Humberto Paredes (1996), Roque Santa Cruz (1997), Ruben Maldonado (1997) and Julio César Caceres (1999). Baez was transferred to J1 League club Avispa Fukuoka whilst Santa Cruz, Paredes, Maldonado and Caceres were transferred to UEFA clubs. Five of the six players went on to play at FIFA World Cup tournaments for Paraguay. Olimpia also had won league titles in 1993 and 1995 and then four back-to-back titles from 1997 to 2000.
Olimpia also won the 2002 Recopa Sudamericana by defeating San Lorenzo of Argentina 2–0 in the final played in Los Angeles. As in 1990, Olimpia lost the Intercontinental Cup final, this time against Real Madrid by a score of 0–2.
A deep slump followed the successful international period of 2002–03. Olimpia failed to qualify for the Copa Libertadores consistently in the following years, and finished last in the 2004 Clausura and 2005 Apertura. Things improved in the 2005 Clausura, with Olimpia finishing 3rd. Oscar Scavone was president from 2004–2006.
At the beginning of the 2007 Apertura season, Paraguayan legend José Cardozo took the helm as coach. His tenure did not last long, as Olimpia were unable to win the championship. For the Clausura tournament, former star player Alicio Solalinde was back at the helm. Though his record was not bad, he was replaced by Carlos Jara Saguier halfway through the tournament. This sparked a lot of controversy, as Saguier was a former player of Cerro Porteño, and an admitted fan of that club. Olimpia finished third in the Clausura tournament, behind Libertad and Cerro Porteño. A fourth-place finish in the annual table (adding both Apertura and Clausura tournaments) allowed Olimpia to return to international play after 4 years of absence with the 2008 Copa Sudamericana.
2008 was a very poor year for the club. In the Torneo Apertura, they finished 8th, and in the Torneo Clausura, they finished 7th, not good enough to qualify for any continental tournaments. In the Copa Sudamericana Olimpia were eliminated in the second stage, after losing the first leg 4-0 to Universidad Catolica. El Decano showed a small improvement for 2010, finishing 4th in the Apertura and 5th in the Clausura, good enough to qualify for the 2010 Copa Sudamericana with a 4th placed finish in the aggregate table.
The year 2011 started off great for the club. A total of twelve new players were incorporated to the first squad The first squad began the Apertura 2011 with seven victories in a row, and ended the first round in 2nd place with 42 points. Nery Pumpido resigned after the Apertura, where he finished runner-up with 42 points.
On 18 December 2011, Olimpia obtained its 39th national league title by winning the 2011 Clausura after eleven years, the longest period without obtaining a national championship. The title came after defeating Rubio Ñu 2–1 at the Estadio Defensores del Chaco and finishing three points ahead of Cerro Porteño. The title was largely celebrated due to the way it was won with Olimpia having only a one-point lead over rivals Cerro until the last matchday. Other reasons why it was an unexpected title are that Olimpia had lost many key players to injuries, internal arguments with Chairman Recanate (later solved) and heavy criticism by other teams's fans about controversial calls made in favor of Olimpia.
Olimpia participated in the 2012 Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana as the "number one competitor" of Paraguay. However, their campaigns in both cups were underwhelming, as they were eliminated in the group stage and second round respectively.
In the 2012 Apertura Olimpia finished third in the league's aggregate table and qualified for the 2013 Copa Libertadores first stage. Their campaign began with a 2-0 aggregate win against Defensor Sporting. Olimpia's first group stage match ended in a 3-1 loss to Newell's Old Boys. However, the club didn't lose any more matches after that one, with highlights being a 5-1 away win against Deportivo Lara and a 4-1 home win against Newell's to finish as group leader with 13 points. In the round of 16, Olimpia beat 2012 Copa Sudamericana finalist Tigre 3-2 on aggregate, followed by a 2-1 aggregate victory over Fluminense in the quarter-finals, and a 2-1 victory on aggregate over Santa Fe to reach the finals for the seventh time, a feat which no Brazilian or Colombian team have been able to achieve. However, they lost to Atlético Mineiro in Mineirão 0–2 after winning 2–0 in Asunción and lost the penalty shootout 4–3, with Matías Giménez's penalty hitting the crossbar, ending the dream of a fourth title.
The club won its 40th title in the 2015 Clausura.
Olimpia won the 2018 Apertura, 2018 Clausura, 2019 Apertura, and 2019 Clausura, to win a tetracampeonato (four-time championship).
The club won its first Copa Paraguay in the 2021 edition, beating Sol de America on penalties. That year, they were eliminated from the Copa Libertadores with a 9-2 aggregate loss against CR Flamengo in the quarter-finals.
In the 2023 Copa Libertadores, Olimpia produced an upset by eliminating defending champions Flamengo in the round of 16, but were then eliminated by Flamengo rivals Fluminense 5-1 on aggregate in the quarter-finals.
| +Club Olimpia honours !style="width: 1%;" | Type !style="width: 5%;" | Competition !style="width: 1%;" | Titles !style="width: 21%;" | Seasons |
| National ! scope=col | Primera División | 47 | 1912, 1914, 1916, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1931, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1947, 1948, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1968, 1971, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2011 Clausura, 2015 Clausura, 2018 Apertura, 2018 Clausura, 2019 Apertura, 2019 Clausura, 2020 Clausura, 2022 Clausura, 2024 Clausura | |
| International ! scope="col" | Copa Libertadores | 3 | 1979, 1990, 2002 | |
| Worldwide ! scope="col" | Intercontinental Cup | 1 | 1979 |
1970s
Non-CONMEBOL players
International
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