Cucuta

Early years

There is some dispute regarding the founding year of Cúcuta Deportivo, but according to historian Alfredo Díaz, the club was founded on 10 September 1924 as Cúcuta Sports Club. The club's first games outside of Colombia were against a team composed of players representing Caracas, Venezuela on 23 November 1926. Two days later, on 25 November, the team played in La Guaira, Venezuela. Cúcuta Sports Club became the base of the Norte de Santander football team that took part in the first Colombian National Games (Juegos Deportivos Nacionales de Colombia) in 1928 in the city of Cali.

On 15 May 1949, the president of the Colombian football league invited the directors of Club Colpet, Chinaquillo, Guasimales, and Unión Frontera to strengthen Cúcuta Deportivo to compete in the new Colombian professional football league. To facilitate the economic reforms required to join the league, Hernando Lara Hernández bought 1,700 shares in the club in September of the same year.

Between September and November 1949, before beginning its first campaign in the Colombian league, Cúcuta played Huracán de Medellín, Universidad de Bogotá, Boca Juniors de Cali, and Atlético Bucaramanga. The latter of these, Atlético Bucaramanga, is Cúcuta's arch rival, and their games are called the clásico of Eastern Colombia.

1950–1994: Economic crisis, league runner-up

In 1950, Cúcuta played in the professional league with a team consisting of 12 Uruguayan players.

During its first professional season, Cúcuta won its first game against the now-defunct Sporting de Barranquilla (2–1), and also defeated Atlético Bucaramanga (0–1) at Atlético's ground in the first clásico of Eastern Colombia. Luis Albert "the Martian" Miloc scored the game's only goal. Cúcuta finished the year in fifth place out of 16 teams. More Uruguayan players were brought in for the 1951–52 season, including Schubert Gambetta and Eusebio Tejera. Cúcuta finished the following year in third place out of 18 teams.

Between 1952 and 1953, the club found itself in its first economic crisis. Resolved not to be disbanded, the team's directors organized an exhibition tour in Central America. The team played in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala and earned enough money to maintain its league status, which it succeeded in doing for two seasons. By 1954 the crisis had grown and the club was forced to exit the Colombian league for two years, returning in 1956. Cúcuta finished fourth in the league that year. Rolando Serrano, the earliest of the great local heroes, began his career at Cúcuta. Serrano later helped the Colombia national team qualify for the 1962 World Cup.

In 1964, Cúcuta turned in their second best season-long performance to date. Under the management of Marino Vargas Villalta, Cúcuta finished second in the Colombian league, a single point behind champions Millonarios.

Relegation

In 1995, after finishing in 16th place in the league, Cúcuta was relegated to the second division, Categoría Primera B. One year later, however, the team won the second division title and returned to the top flight, only to be promptly relegated after finishing in last place. Despite finishing second in the Primera B in 1997 to Atlético Huila, Cúcuta failed to win promotion in the league's playoffs, and remained in the second division until 2005. That year they were finally crowned Primera B champions and returned to the top flight.

The first star

Under manager Jorge Luis Pinto, Cúcuta qualified to the finals against Deportes Tolima, which would be played over two legs. The first game in Cucuta on 17 December ended in a 1–0 victory for Cucuta, with Rodrigo Saraz scoring the only goal of the game. In the return leg in Ibagué three days later, Yulián Anchico opened the scoring for Tolima, but with twelve minutes remaining Macnelly Torres scored to tie the game at 1–1. This result meant Cúcuta won 2–1 on aggregate and were crowned champions of the 2006 Finalizacion.

With this title, Cucuta achieved qualification to the Copa Libertadores for the first time in history, and became the first team to win the top division title just one year after promotion.

Some of the key players in this championship were Blas Pérez, Roberto Bobadilla, Charles Castro, Macnelly Torres, Nelson Flórez, Lincarlo Henry, and Róbinson Zapata.

2007 Copa Libertadores

Cúcuta were placed in Group 3 of the 2007 Copa Libertadores alongside Deportes Tolima, Grêmio from Brazil, and Cerro Porteño from Paraguay.

The team's first game was a home game against Tolima, a rematch of the 2006 league finals, which ended 0–0. After that they traveled to Porto Alegre to play Grêmio, another game which ended 0–0. For their third match they returned to Colombia to play Cerro Porteño in a match that ended 1–1. The match that followed was against Cerro Porteño at Estadio General Pablo Rojas in Asunción, which ended in a 2–1 loss for Cúcuta. The team rebounded, however, and defeated Grêmio 3–1 at home; for the final group stage match they visited Tolima in Ibagué and won 4–3 in a high-scoring match. This victory ensured their passage into the next round as the second-placed team in the group with 9 points, behind group winners Grêmio, who finished with 10 points.