Club Alianza Lima, who are they?

Club Alianza Lima (more commonly known as Alianza Lima) are one of the oldest clubs in the history of Peruvian football. They were founded on the 15th of February, 1901, by a group of young working-class men from the Chacaritas neighbourhood of Lima who shared a passion for football. Their main objective was to create a team that would represent and defend their community against teams from other neighbourhoods.

Alianza are the only team still in existence today out of the teams who founded the Peruvian Football League in 1912. It was there that the club played their first official match and began to lay the foundations of what is now the top division of Peruvian football.

In the 1920s, the club experienced two key moments that defined their identity. First, they changed their name from Sport Alianza to Sport Alianza Lima, and then, eventually, they became Club Alianza Lima.

The club’s traditional home kit consists of navy blue and white striped shirts and navy blue shorts and socks. However, in the month of October, when Lima celebrates the “Lord of Miracles” procession, the navy blue colour is replaced by purple for all matches played that month.

Alianza Lima have won twenty-seven domestic trophies at the time of writing. They have been crowned champions of the Peruvian first division on twenty-five occasions and have also won one league cup and one super cup.

Their best performances in continental competition occurred in the 1970s. They won the Copa Simón Bolívar in 1976, the same year they reached the semi-finals of the Copa Libertadores. This achievement was repeated two years later in the 1978 Copa Libertadores.

Today, Alianza Lima are considered the most popular Peruvian team worldwide. In fact, in 2019, CONMEBOL ranked them as the sixth most popular team in the region, only surpassed by historic clubs like Flamengo, Corinthians, Boca Juniors, São Paulo, and River Plate.