Cerro Porteño take on Olimpia on Saturday evening for the 311th time in the league with El Ciclón having won 108 games as opposed to El Decano’s 106, it will be only the fifth encounter in La Olla where the visitors have only been victorious once in 1981. Rather than previewing the match, here is some of the history behind this fixture.
Origins of the rivalry
The first meeting between the sides was back in 1913 less than a year after Cerro Porteño’s foundation, it ended 2-2 (although some sources say Cerro won 3-1) in the year that the azulgrana were crowned champions for the first time. At that moment Olimpia’s main competitor were Guaraní as both clubs were the oldest in the division, but the rivalry with the new “upstarts” began the very next year in 1914. At the end of the league season both sides were level on 15 points, so they had to play a one-off game to decide who became champions. That turned into three games as the first two matches ended in draws. In the third contest the founders of Paraguayan football won 3-2 to win their second ever title.
History would repeat itself in 1915, in the regular season Cerro thrashed Olimpia 5-1 only for the next meeting to finish 5-0, and then with the sides locked on the same number of points it was time for another playoff. A 1-1 draw at Sol de América’s ground called for a replay, this time on Nacional’s pitch then known as Quinta Stewart. The hotly-disputed ninety minutes ended in a 4-4 draw, rather than play for a third time (as they had done the previous year) the teams had 30 minutes of extra time. In that half hour the boys from Barrio Obrero blew away their opponent with three goals to run out 7-4 winners, and that is how their nickname El Ciclón (The Cyclone) was born.
1916 would see Olimpia win their third title, before Cerro won in 1918 and 1919 to reach four championships – at that point no other side had won the league more times so the relatively “young” side were now the team to beat and had replaced Guaraní as El Decano‘s main rival.
Big wins, Big games, Big goals
In 1916, just after Cerro Porteño had scored seven after extra time the sides played a friendly to warm up for the new season. Olimpia took out their frustration on their rivals with a 10-1 thumping that remains their biggest win in this victory.
In a competitive game the highest margin of victory was 8-1 by Cerro Porteño in 1937 in the first round of the championship, although Olimpia would have the last laugh pipping them to the title by a single point. Pedro Osorio scored four goals in that clash, a record that stood for 68 years until Dante López equalled it in a 4-1 win for Olimpia. In 2019 Roque Santa Cruz became the third player to score a “póker” in the derby during a 4-2 victory.
With the introduction of continental competition it was Cerro Porteño who drew first blood when they secured a comfortable 4-1 win in 1969. In 1998 Olimpia would win by a bigger margin in the Libertadores as they ran out 5-1 winners. The Libertadores game with the most goals was a thrilling 4-3 win for Cerro over nine-man Olimpia who had clawed back from 3-0 down to make a game of it. A teenage Roque Santa Cruz scored twice in that match.
In fact, Roque was the youngest-ever scorer in the clásico in when he scored in the 1998 Finalísima (Grand Final) aged just 17 years 3 months. That record stood until Sergio Díaz opened the scoring for the azulgrana in 2015, he was a couple of months younger. The record was blown away by Fernando Ovelar in 2018, aged just 14 at the time he was handed a suprise start and shocked everybody opening the scoring for El Ciclón.
More recently there have been two standout games that decide the title, the first came in 2012 the final game of the Apertura. Olimpia had been on course to win the title but slipped up in the penultimate fixture against Sportivo Luqueño meaning they only had a one point advantage over Cerro going into the finale. In the first half the azulgrana were awarded a penalty which Santiago Salcedo converted for Jorge Fossati’s team. Salcedo was involved again in the second half as he won a dangerous freekick on the edge of the box. Jonathan Fabbro stood over the dead ball and dispatched it into the far corner leaving Martín Silva no chance as half of the Defensores went wild. They ended up 2-1 winners.
In 2015 it seemed history would repeat itself as Olimpia, then managed by Chiqui Arce, threw away an advantage towards the end of the Clausura having seemingly overcome Cerro Porteño who had also stumbled. An inexplicable 0-0 home draw to relegated Santaní on the final day, while Cerro came from behind to beat Sol de América, meant the sides would have to play a title decider, just as they had done 100 years previously. It was a charged affair in a downpour in Defensores del Chaco, Cerro Porteño had a goal disallowed in the first half and a player sent off in the second but by then they were already 2-0 down to goals from el Zorro Bareiro and a Lugano own goal. Beltrán pulled one back but it wasn’t enough and Olimpia celebrated even while their opponents remonstrated in the tunnel.
Scoring for both sides
Many players, and coaches, have switched between the country’s two biggest clubs although the only man to have scored three goals for each club in clásicos is Miguel Ángel Sanabria. Born in Valenzuela in the Cordillera region but raised out in the east near Caaguazú he debuted in Cerro in the mid-80s and lived under the stands in La Olla for two years as a youth team player. Nicknamed the “Cabecita de Oro” (Little golden head) for his aerial ability he was champion with both Cerro and later Olimpia in the 90s, also reaching the 1991 Copa Libertadores final with the La O.
Pablo Zeballos began life at Sol de América, but had his greatest season at Cerro in 2010 just missing out on the title. But just months later he was at arch-rivals Olimpia and in a heated superclásico in the 2011 Apertura he scored the winner and didn’t hold back in his celebrations. On his return to the club, after a stint in Europe, he scored again in 2015 becoming the only other player after Sanabria to score multiple goals for both sides.
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