Real Estelí

Marlon López lifted the Copa de Nicaragua for Real Estelí in 2023, the club's first success in that competition since the same trophy in 1991 — a gap of thirty-two years the club spent winning almost everything else. Real Estelí have taken the Primera División title 22 times since a first championship in 1991, and for most of the past two decades the question in Nicaraguan football has not been whether they win the league but which of the two annual tournaments, Apertura or Clausura, they take. The most recent came in the 2026 Clausura.

The club plays at Estadio Independencia, whose capacity has grown past its listed figure as work continues to expand the ground — tickets for a recent final against Alajuelense sold out with the stands still under expansion. Red and white shirts have given the side its nickname, El Tren del Norte, the Train of the North, a reference to Estelí's position as the main city of Nicaragua's northern highlands.

Continental football has been less forgiving. Real Estelí reached the final of the CONCACAF Central American Cup in both 2023 and 2024 and lost both times, the closest a Nicaraguan club has come to a regional title without winning one.

The club took its current name a year after it was founded, playing its first matches in 1960 as Estelí FC before Real was added in 1961.