Last week, the 45th edition of the oldest club competition in the world, the South American Championship South Zone, came to a close. It was won by Cotas Juniors from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, and was held in Asunción, Paraguay, at the Luis Oscar Giagni Miers Sports Complex of the Sol de América club, which previously hosted the 1999 Pan American Games and the 2003 World Cup.
This competition, which began in 1970 with Palmeiras of Brazil's victory at the Comuneros stadium in Asunción, Paraguay—the same site where, five years earlier, the first international competition in history at the national team level took place with the local team's victory—was played with a format exclusively for South American teams until 1999. Its 23rd edition, held in Quito, Ecuador in 2000, extended the participation of teams to North America.
Again from 2004 it underwent another change and was divided into South and North zones, giving rise to a different competition between the champions of both areas, which is known as the Copa de las Américas.
Paraguayans won 23 championships
The most successful teams in the 45 editions held to date are the Paraguayan teams that have won 23 titles, namely: Rubio Ñu 7, Jose Meza and Sport Colonial 3, General Garay and Unasur 2, Star's Club, San Alfonso, Simón Bolivar, Gomeria Los Amigos de Encarnación, Los Halcones Negros de Ciudad del Este and Fomento de Barrio Obrero, one each.
Brazilian clubs follow in the list of winners with this distribution
BRAZILIAN AWARDS IN 12 EDITIONS
Behind Paraguay is Brazil with twelve titles, distributed as follows: Perdigao 4, Bradesco 3, Palmeiras and Sumov 2 and Colorado 1.
Argentina occupies the third position with six: Estudiantil Porteño 2, Universidad de Rosario, Casino Club, Pesquera Juancito and Andes Talleres, one each.
Finally, there is Uruguay with two: Nacional de Montevideo and Albion de Pan de Azucar and Bolivia: Cooperativa Rural de Electrificación (CRE) and Cotas Juniors de Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
Photo: Rubio Ñu of Pedro Juan Caballero set a record that will be hard to break: seven-time champion between 1997 and 2003
