Clasico del Astillero Countdown: 1 Day

Happy Birthday wishes to Emelec and Barcelona! As the two Guayaquil clubs prepare for Sunday’s Shipyard Derby, We take a lok back to the history of these legendary Ecuadorian sides. Yesterday, Emelec celebrated it’s 77th year as a club; on Monday, Barcelona will turn 81. Do they make greeting cards for football clubs?

Emelec and Barcelona, the biggest clubs in Ecuador’s biggest city, each have a long history of winning domestic honors. Emelec have ten league titles, the last of which came when they repeated as champs in 2002. Barcelona have won the title thirteen times, the most of any Ecuadorian side. Los Toreros have also been runners-up in the Copa Libertadores twice, in 1990 and 1998.

Emelec gets it odd name from it’s early days of representing the EMpresa ELectrica del ECuador. Electrcity is still a theme of the club. Barcelona gets its familiar moniker from the fact the club, although founded by Ecuadorians, was originally financed by Spanish immigrants from Catalonia. The club was named after their favorite team from back home.

This weekend’s derby will be the 169th in the series. Barcelona have won 55, Emelec 51. For you math majors, that means 62 draws. Pretty damn even.

Both clubs of course enjoy enormous fan support. The fans do their best to make each team’s grounds a tough and intimidating place to play. The rowdiest, most passionate Emelec fans are the “boca del pozo”, or “mouth of the pit”. For Barcelona, it’s the “sur oscura,” or “dark southern” end. These days, both clubs have a nice presence on the Web. The top Emelec fan site, for my money, is Emelexista. For Barcelona, check out Hincha Amarillo. (Both sites are in Spanish, although Emelexista has plenty of cool photos and videos that need no translation.)

Tomorrow’s projected lineups:

Emelec
Marcelo Elizaga
Carlos Quiñónez, Juan Triviño, Marco Quiñónez, Xavier Aguirre
José Luis Quiñónez, Peter Mercado, Armando Paredes, Guillermo Rivera
Jorge Ladines, Marco Mondaini

Barcelona
Geovanni Camacho
Gilbert Quiñónez, Raúl Noriega, Víctor Montoya, Fricson George.
Edwin Tenorio, Leonardo Soledispa, David García, Elkin Soto
Derlis Florentin, Johnny Baldeón (assuming he’s fit)