Estudiantes de Merida FC

Club · Venezuela · Primera División

«Los Académicos»

226 Matches

78 wins

53 draws

95 losses

300–325 Goals

−25 Difference

1.3 Scored per game

Form L D W L W D

Two league titles sit in the Mérida trophy room, both from a decade when the club was young enough. The first came in 1980, the second in 1985. Before either of them, in the season the club drew its first breath, it had already taken the Copa Venezuela — the 1971 trophy arrived the same year as the founding, and a second followed in 1975.

The founder was an engineer, Guillermo Soto Rosa, and the date was 4 April 1971. His name stayed on the ground the club used until 2005, when it moved to the Estadio Olímpico Metropolitano de Mérida and its 42,200 seats.

José Chiazzaro scored the first goal in the club's history in 1971 and never really stopped: 183 in all. He is the reason the early years read as more than a founding date.

Not everything held. The club dropped into the Segunda in 2006 and came straight back up the following year, keeping its name through it — no refounding, no merger. Twice it reached a final and lost both to Caracas FC, in 2009 and again in 2019, the second after winning the Apertura and falling at the last step for the absolute title. Under Richard Páez it went further in continental football than at any other point, out in the quarter-finals of the 1999 Copa Libertadores.

The fixture that mattered most in the city was against ULA FC, the university side from the same streets — the Clásico Merideño, or the SuperClásico de La Montaña, depending on who was talking. Two clubs from one small Andean city, one named for its students and the other for its university. ULA were dissolved in 2023.

Latest results

All matches

30 Aug	Primera División	UCV H
22 Aug	Primera División	Puerto Cabello H	1:1	D
15 Aug	Primera División	Academia Anzoátegui H	1:0	W
10 Aug	Primera División	Rayo Zuliano A	0:3	L
6 Aug	Primera División	Zamora H	1:0	W
3 Aug	Primera División	Caracas FC A	2:2	D