Curicó Unido

Franco Bechtoldt spent a decade at Curicó Unido, from 2012 to 2022, and left having played more matches for the club than anyone else — 271. That kind of tenure is unusual for a side that has spent most of its life shuttling between divisions, and it says something about what Curicó Unido actually is.

It began on 26 February 1973, when Deportes Badminton, a club that had relocated from Santiago, decided its old name no longer fitted the city it now played in. The result was a new, legally distinct entity in Curicó. In 1998 it absorbed Provincial Curicó, a youth-focused club founded that same year, and took the word "Provincial" into its own official name as part of the deal.

The team plays in a white shirt crossed by a red diagonal band, with black shorts — the basis for its main nickname, Albirrojos. Two others circulate alongside it: Torteros, and El Hijo del Pueblo, "the people's son."

Silverware has come at the lower levels: the Tercera División in 2005, and Primera B twice, in 2008 and again in 2016–17. The club's best return in the top flight arrived later and unexpectedly — third place in 2022, high enough to reach the Copa Sudamericana. Luis Martínez holds the scoring record from an earlier era, 69 goals between 1983 and 1988; Federico Castro has since set the mark for goals in the top division alone, between 16 and 21 by most counts.

Both are settled, ultimately, at Estadio La Granja — officially Estadio Bicentenario La Granja — an 8,016-seat ground built with an athletics track around the pitch.