Full name | Club Deportivo Atlético Balboa |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | Los Porteños, La Ciclón |
Founded | 1950 |
Dissolved | 2010 |
Ground |
Estadio Marcelino Imbers, La Unión, El Salvador |
Capacity | 4,000 |
Chairman | Pablo Robles |
Manager | Mario Martínez |
League | Segunda División |
Club Deportivo Atlético Balboa, commonly known as Atlético Balboa or Balboa is a Salvadoran football club. The team currently plays in La Unión.
The foundation of "Ciclón del Golfo" goes back to 1950, in which a group of cipotes united in the Unionense district of Quebrachal to found a sport team. Mauro "El Turco" Granados, Simón Reyes, Paulino Cáceres, Pablo Rubio, Rodolfo Guzmán, Carlos Villalta, Carlos Juárez, René Pantoja, Luis Ávila, Chico Osorio, Juan Guevara, Chico Ruíz and Timoteo Hernández were the members on that fateful. The sports team purpose was to make a baseball team, however when the team didn't fill expectations they decided to form a football team. They decided to name the club "Balboa" after the Panamanian currency and played their first friendly match against the Honduran team América de Choluteca. The team's first colours were white with Green diagonal stripes, however were changed by the team first president Ricardo Flores to black and red.
After becoming champions of the Segunda División in 1998, Atlético Balboa ascended to the Salvadoran Primera División where in their first season they finished runner-up thanks to the coaching effort of Mario Martínez and Óscar Benítez and great players such as Franklin Webster and Elvis Perreira.
After the first 12 months in the Primera División, the team tried to lay the foundation for a better season. However, poor administrative decisions and negative results didn't allow the team to achieve their goals. In this period the team went through three coaches Óscar Benítez, Saúl Molina and the Argentine Juan Quarterone, however all three didn't stop the slide and they finished in seventh place. Despite the purchase of new players like Argentine Luciano Suárez, Colombian Manuel Díaz, Honduran Camilo Bonilla and Uruguayan Carlos Edgar Villarreal, the team lacked goals and not even Webster and Pereira could break the goalscoring drought.