Spain

Valencia B

Spain

History

Valencia Club de Fútbol, S. A. D. (Spanish: [baˈlenθja ˈkluβ ðe ˈfuðβol]; Valencian: València Club de Futbol [vaˈlensi.a ˈklub de fubˈbɔl]), commonly known as Valencia CF or simply Valencia, is a Spanish professional football club based in Valencia. The team currently competes in La Liga, the highest tier of the Spanish league system. In the all-time ranking of Spanish football, the club holds fifth place, having previously ranked third until 2016 and fourth until 2025. Valencia has also played in 91 of the 95 seasons of the top division in Spain. Founded in 1919, the club has played its home matches at Mestalla, which has a capacity of 49,430 spectators, since its opening in 1923. The club is expected to move to the new stadium, Nou Mestalla, in 2027, which will have a capacity of 70,044 spectators.

Valencia has won six La Liga titles and finished as runners-up six times, as well two Segunda División titles, eight Copa del Rey trophies, one Spanish Super Cup, and one Copa Eva Duarte. In European competitions, they have won two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, one UEFA Cup, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, two UEFA Super Cups, and one UEFA Intertoto Cup. They have also reached two consecutive UEFA Champions League Finals in 2000 and 2001. The club was champion of the Small Club World Cup in 1966, and runner-up in 1955, despite not having FIFA world title recognition, and fourth in the Latin Cup of 1953. In 2004, the IFFHS named Valencia World's Best Club. Valencia were also members of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs and since its end has been part of the original members of the European Club Association.

Five former members of the club have been inducted into the FIFA International Football Hall of Fame, a project dedicated to preserving the memory of important figures in football history. These include Alfredo Di Stéfano, Mario Alberto Kempes, Romário, Jorge Valdano and Didier Deschamps. Valencia also has four personalities in the FIFA 100, its induction taking place in 2004 as part of the centenary celebrations of FIFA's creation. The ches club is the team with the most Zarra Trophy winners (5), the fourth in the Zamora Trophy (9) and fifth in the Pichichi Trophy (6) at the national level, at the international level it's the third Spanish team with the most FIFA World Player nominees (9) and the fourth in the Ballon d'Or (23), it has ten nominations for the Golden Boy Award, one for the 2019 Kopa Trophy with Lee Kang-in and one for the 2024 Yashin Trophy with Giorgi Mamardashvili. It has been included three times in the UEFA Team of the Year, with Santiago Cañizares and Kily González in 2001 and David Villa in 2010, the last repeating in the FIFPro World XI in the same year.

Four Valencia players were part of the Spanish national team that won the 2010 FIFA World Cup: David Villa, who won the Silver Boot as the second-highest scorer, tied with Thomas Müller on five goals and the Bronze Ball as the third best player in the final phase of the championship, Carlos Marchena, David Silva and Juan Mata. In addition, Raúl Albiol, who came up through the youth ranks, was also part of the world champion team. In 2026, three footballers who came through the Valencia youth system were part of the squad that won the World Cup. Ferran Torres, a youth player since the age of seven and later a member of the first team, was one of the stars of the tournament, scoring the goal that gave Spain the title in the final against Argentina. Alejandro Grimaldo, who came through the youth ranks up to the cadet level, and Borja Iglesias, who spent time at the academy during his youth career, completed the Valencia youth representation in the two-time world champions. Seven of its members have managed to win Olympic Games medals throughout its history: David Albelda and Miguel Ángel Angulo, silver in Sydney 2000; Fabián Ayala, gold in Athens 2004; Éver Banega, gold in Beijing 2008; Carlos Soler, silver in Tokyo 2020; Cristhian Mosquera and Diego López, gold in Paris 2024.

The club maintains a youth academy, known as "Acadèmia". Products of the academy include players such as Miguel Tendillo, Ricardo Arias, Fernando Gómez, Andrés Palop, Javier Farinos, Raúl Albiol, David Albelda, Vicente Rodríguez, Gaizka Mendieta and David Silva. Current stars of the game to have graduated in recent years include Isco, Jordi Alba, Paco Alcácer, Juan Bernat, José Gayà, Carlos Soler, Ferran Torres, Lee Kang-in, Cristhian Mosquera, and Javi Guerra. Historically one of the biggest clubs in the world in terms of number of associates (registered paying supporters), with around 50,000 season ticket holders at their peak, the club began to decline in the mid-2010s. Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim acquired the team in 2014.

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The club was established on 5 March 1919 and officially approved on 18 March 1919, with Octavio Augusto Milego Díaz as its first president; incidentally, the presidency was decided by a coin toss. The club played its first competitive match away from home on 21 May 1919 against Valencia Gimnástico, and lost the match 1–0.

Valencia moved into the Mestalla Stadium in 1923, having played its home matches at the Algirós ground since 7 December 1919. The first match at Mestalla pitted the home side against Castellón Castalia and ended in a 0–0 draw. In another match the day after, Valencia won 1–0 against the same opposition. Valencia CF won the Regional Championship in 1923, and was eligible to play in the domestic Copa del Rey cup competition for the first time in its history.

1940s: Emergence as a giant in Spanish football

The Spanish Civil War halted the progress of the Valencia team until 1941, when it won the Copa del Rey, beating RCD Espanyol in the final. In the 1941–42 season, the club won its first Spanish La Liga championship title, although winning the Copa del Rey was more reputable than the championship at that time. The club maintained its consistency to capture the league title again in the 1943–44 season, as well as the 1946–47 league edition. They would conclude their decade of success by winning the 1949 Copa del Rey; this meant Valencia ended the decade with a record of three La Liga and two Copa del Rey titles. This success would help cement the club's name in Spanish football.

In the 1950s, Valencia failed to emulate the success of the previous decade, even though it grew as a club. A restructuring of Mestalla resulted in an increase in spectator capacity to 45,000, while the club had a number of Spanish and foreign stars. Players such as Spanish international Antonio Puchades and Dutch forward Faas Wilkes graced the pitch at Mestalla. In the 1952–53 season, the club finished as runners-up in La Liga, and in the following season, won the Copa del Rey, then known as the Copa del Generalísimo.

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