Cobreloa

On 1 January 1948, 'Club Social Deportivo Deportes El Loa' was founded in Calama, Chile. This club was the first legal personality of the team and the first team in Calama in have this type of personality. In 1951, the team played in the Asociación de Fútbol de Calama with a second team with the name 'Cóndor'. Later, in February 1955, the team was renamed to 'Club Deportivo y Social Sport Cóndor.

In 1957, Calama entered on a tournament organized by the newly established Asociación Nacional de Fútbol Amateur de Chile, previously known as a federation, Calama had participated in previous amateur tournaments, such as in 1949 and 1953. The third Nacional Juvenil de Fútbol began on July 28 of that year. The organizers' goal was to select a group of players who would compete in the 1962 World Cup, which would be held in Chile. The first phase matches were played in regional divisions, with the Calama youth team facing off against its counterpart from Chuquicamata.

In 1959, the Calama Amateur team, coached by Roberto Rodríguez Antequera, won the 28th edition of the National Amateur Football Championship. The final was against Thomas Bata de Peñaflor, played at the Estadio Municipal de Calama. The score was 3-2 in extra time, after a 2-2 tie at the end of regulation time. The game-winner was scored by Valencia in the 8th minute of the first half. The team that played in the final was as follows:

Hidalgo, Soto, Tapia, Lillo, Aracena, Toro, Gutierrez, A. Portillo, Valencia, M. Portillo, and Vega.

This achievement allowed Calama to qualify for the Copa Chile of that same year, as an amateur team, but they only reached the round of 16 of the tournament, being eliminated in that round by Deportes La Serena, winning by one goal in the first leg and winning 6-0 in the second leg, qualifying them for the next phase.

By 1960, Sport Cóndor team was already participating in provincial championships in the region of Antofagasta with teams from Calama, such as Tronador, which would animate the matches of the Asociación de Fútbol de Calama of that decade; from Tocopilla as Chile Sporting, from Tal-Tal as Unión Caleta and the teams such Coquimbo and Correvuela from Chuquicamata.

Later, on Sunday, December 17, 1961, the Chuquicamata amateur, coached by Daniel Chirinos, team won the next edition of the Chilean National Amateur Football Tournament undefeated against Osorno 3-2, with a hat trick by Mario Valencia, at the Anaconda Stadium in Chuquicamata, before an audience of 6,346. The winning team's lineup was as follows:

Hidalgo, Silva, Gary, Cortés, Valencia, Reyes, León (Cortés), Portillo, Mario Valencia, Carvajal (Diaz), and Bustos.

In the previous match, the Calama teams, coached this time by Jaime Meneses, and Peñaflor played, and the score ended in a 2-2 draw. These facts pushed to the 'El Loa' citizen the desire to have a professional team in the city.

In 1962, Sport Cóndor submitted its bid to participate in professional football. At that time, the club had the support of the Chile Exploration Company, then managed by the Anaconda Copper consortium, an international mining company, from which the state-owned company, CODELCO, would be born a decade later. Its then president, Carlos Seguel, was also the company's commercial manager and established links between the sports club and the company. The Asociación Central de Fútbol Profesional de Chile responded negatively to the request by the president of the club.

During the Holy Week period of 1964, the Calama and Chuquicamata teams played an international quadrangular, hosted in Calama, with a title in dispute, which included the participation of the Municipal de Lima international team from Peru and the Universidad Católica de Chile team, who were on tour. In the last matches of the competition, the Universidad Católica team defeated the Calama football team by 4 goals to 0, in favor of the Santiago team, the goals were scored by Foulijoux, Tobar, Gajardo and Isella. And the Municipal de Lima team defeated the Chuquicamata team by 5 goals to 1, with double goals by Etuchi, Drago Mosquera and Bernales, these results gave the winner of the international tournament to the Peruvian team Municipal de Lima.

In 1965, the Presidents' Congress of the Segunda División Tournament agreed that provincial teams would not be accepted into the tournament in order to compete in 1966. Therefore, the Sport Condor club was not eligible to apply to join the Segunda División during this period of time.

In January 1967, the idea of merging Sport Cóndor with Santiago Morning under the name of 'Loa Morning' to venture into professional football was originated by the Asociación de Fútbol de Calama, the choice at that time was the financial crisis of the chosen team, which led it to relegate to Segunda División; In August of the same year the board of Chile Exploration Company headed by Carlos Seguel accepted a period of formal approach with this team, but this idea failed due to the refusal of the partners and the board of directors of both teams.

On 2 January 1968, 'Gobernación del Loa' decided to introduce a football club to professional football to represent the northern chile region, to this end, they encouraged Cóndor and 'Correvuela', the team of the neighboring Chuquicamata, but this initiative failed because the 'Asociación Central de Fútbol' decided incorporate 'Antofagasta Portuario' like a representative. In 1969.

In press releases from the Illustrious Municipality of Calama, reference has been made to the fact that Club Sport Cóndor, later known as Deportes El Loa, leased the Calama Municipal Stadium for its sporting events. These leases date from 1969 to 1974.

By 1971, the Sport Cóndor club, a club recognized by the Asociación Nacional de Fútbol Amateur of Chile, who made its application for the only place offered by the Asociación Central de Fútbol Profesional that year, by then, the application was reinforced by adding the name of Deportes El Loa, appearing as a double application, the manager who would be in charge of the institution would be Jorge Burboa, who participated in the integration into professionalism of clubs such as Federico Schwager and Huachipato, this application had the support of workers' unions in Chuquicamata, Calama, and the nitrate offices of Pedro de Valdivia and Maria Elena. The club already had 10,000 members, whose membership fees would be deducted from their payroll, the board of delegates finally decided to include the Independiente de Cauquenes team to enter the Segunda División that year. The request to enter the professional ranks was rejected again.

The representative colors of Deportes El Loa were a yellow shirt, blue shorts, and white socks, similar to those of the Brazilian national team, since the team's coach, Roberto Rodriguez, liked the Brazilian national team's football. The team was a member of the Asociación de Fútbol de Calama. That year, the team faced the Cuban national football team, which was touring Chile, and won 1-0 over the Cubans.

In 1972, the then Deportes El Loa team loaned players from its team to represent Calama in the thirty-fourth Campeonato Nacional de Fútbol Amateur. At the time, it was coached by Roberto Rodríguez and featured players who had played on professional teams, such as Héctor Torres, Jorge Garcés, and Gabriel Cáceres.

In 1974, another entry into the Asociación Central de Fútbol Profesional of Deportes El Loa, chaired by Carlos Seguel, was submitted for the first time. In 1975, the application for entry into professional football was again submitted, but was rejected again, on the grounds that Calama was outside the established limits for professional football. In that year, the player Carlos Rojas, enters the final of Deportes El Loa, coming from Unión Española. This player, who would return to play from the beginning of Cobreloa until 1990, won three national titles in the Primera División and one Copa Chile in 1986. He also had a period as a formative player trainer at the club, being one of the managers of the first sale of the club, Mauricio Donoso. He then had a stint as coach of the club's first team, in the 1997 and 1998 tournament, then in 2000. He then coached again in 2016.

The director board of 'Club Regional Antofagasta' held some talks with the regional Mayor of Region of Antofagasta in order to get Codelco workers to join and give one percent of their salary to the club, but the local government officials rejected the idea. There have also been indications that the club has expressed a desire to undertake the same unification exercise with the professional club Deportes Magallanes, but without success.

On 26 September 1976, the 'Cámara del Comercio', Railroad Unions, merchants and businessmen, sports directors of the 'El Loa' and also the Coronel Fernando Ibáñez, the prefect Francisco Núñez Venegas and the assistant directors of CODELCO, José Gorrini, Renzo Gasparini, Orlando Urbina and Nicolás Tschischow formed a committee called 'Pro Ingreso al Fútbol Rentado' with the purpose of induction 'Deportes El Loa' to professional football in Chile. The director of the hospital of Roy H. Glover, Sergio Stóppel joined this effort. United under the motto 'Ahora o Núnca' ('Now or never'), and was subsequently accepted into 'Segunda División' on the 14 October in the same year. In December this initiative counted with the approval of clubs like Regional Antofagasta, Colo-Colo, Naval, Aviación, Huachipato, Coquimbo, Ovalle, Everton, Wanderers and O'higgins.

A work plan was developed prior to entering professional football. This consisted of consultations with top executives in the field, such as city coaches, and in-depth studies of the team. This included a review of the area's sports infrastructure. Commissions traveled across the country to gather useful information prior to the founding of the new team. The objective of all this was to meet the requirements necessary to enter the country's professional football sector. The work plan lasted six months.

Due the inexperience of the directors of the team on professional football, they decided to sign up Alfonso Fuentes who had previously worked as a manager for Lota Schwager. The directors of the team, José Gorrini and Francisco Núñez, decided to incorporate to team as a section of CODELCO.

Fernando Riera, helped by Carlos Lillio Guerrero y Roberto Rodríguez, was asked to select the players for the team. They presented requirements to Executive Committee of the team to create the first squad with selection of the best players in the El Loa región. For this selection, mining workers who had previous Football experience were used. At the end of the day, the technical staff selected the following players:

The selected team would begin regular training at Anaconda Stadium, with the goal of eventually being presented to the Asociación Central de Fútbol Profesional. This was at the request of Nicolás Tschichow, José Gorrini, and Mario Puente.

On October 14 of this year, Eduardo Gordon, president of the Asociación Central de Fútbol Profesional, received the executive committee's letter of introduction, signed by all the entities involved.

On November the team played previous matches before entering professional football, which would enter into the Segunda División championship of their country, their first match in this period was with Regional Antofagasta with a 2-2 goal tie, then facing the Copiapó team, achieving a victory and then against the Vallenar team by 6 goals to 3.

On 7 January 1977, the NCO School of Carabineros of Chile, all directors of Asociación Central de Fútbol and all representatives of Chilean football clubs were reunited at 18.30 P.M. in Calama and Chuquicamata. Through the local Radio, 'Radio El Loa', at 20.15 P.M. the incorporation of 'Deportes El Loa' to the professional football by unanimous 'Primera and Segunda división' clubs approval was officially announced.

The governor and the mayor of Calama, called to the citizens to support this new project, end celebrated the event. To celebrate this fact, they chose a new name for the team, rejecting the proposed 'Calama Loa' due to this name not being representative of mining that composes the main economic activity of the region. The name Deportes El Loa, under which the club was presented to the Asociación Central de Fútbol Profesional, was changed at the request of the same board of directors. At a meeting of the club's leaders, the name "Cobreloa" was chosen because the new name included the miner, his family, copper, and El Loa, thus representing all the inhabitants of the province. By this time the club already had a daily membership of 10,625. The exercise of eliminating the legal status of Deportes El Loa and giving rise to Deportes Cobreloa was carried out by Cesáreo Castillo Michea, who was a leader of the Asociación de Fútbol de Calama until 1976 and also a prominent businessman in the city of Calama.

The first head coach of the club was elected in a shortlist between Salvador Nocetti, Pedro Morales, Luis Santibañez, Caopolicán Peña, Isaac Carrasco and Andrés Prieto. Initially, an offer was made to coach Pedro Morales, but he declined, and on his recommendation, the directors ultimately chose Andrés Prieto as the team's head coach for the season and he signs with the club on 15 January 1977.

When he was appointed team manager, Andres Prieto contacted the physical trainer, Gustavo Graef, at that time he was working for the Chilean National Soccer Team, the negotiations were not fruitful because the team had to pay a higher amount than the national team to take him, discarding him. Then there were approaches with the coaches; Sergio Lillo, Armando Aravena, Alejandro Sanchez, however, none was available to address the deal. On Graef's recommendation, they contacted Alejandro Guzmán to be the team's first physical trainer, who ended up accepting the proposal. The technical staff is made up as follows:

he choose the first transfers of the first team, been the following.

The first matches recorded as Deportes Cobreloa were those held on January 9 against the Chiquicamata youth team, with Cobreloa winning by 3 goals to 2 and The historical match of the team on January 12 of this year, against Tocopilla selection team, playing away. The result of the match was victory of the team by 0–1. Their first defeat was recorded on January 30 against Universidad Católica, losing 1-3 with Chuquicamata as the venue.

After the friendly matches in the local area, the team decided to continue their preseason preparations at the Las Vertientes Training Center in Santiago de Chile, where they would initially meet with the squad's foreign signings and the new management team. During this time, they faced teams from the capital, which would help them prepare for their first ever competitive season.

The first official match of the team was on the date February 6 of this year, playing away against 'Regional Antofagasta', on the Estadio 'Regional de Antofagasta' valid for 'Copa Chile', winning by 0–2 with goals of Armando Alarcón on 20' and Juan Rogelio Núñez on 34'.

The team entered the field with the following Line-Up:

Line-Up:

• Juan Olivares
• Elmo Aedo
• Luis Garisto
• Germán Concha
• Mnafredo González
• Armando Alarcón
• Luis Huanca
• Gustavo Cuello
• Juan Rogelio Núñez
• Héctor Castillo
• Guillermo González
• Coach: Andrés Prieto

The club was able to establish itself in Chile's top flight very quickly, earning promotion after its first season, where they stayed until the 2014–2015 season. Only four years after their foundation, Cobreloa reached the finals of the Copa Libertadores in 1981, losing in a third match to Brazilian club Flamengo. Cobreloa reached the Copa Libertadores final the following year, losing to Peñarol of Uruguay. The club also reached the semi-final of the Copa Libertadores in 1987.

They have competed in the Copa Libertadores de América 13 times, 3 times in the Copa Sudamericana and twice in the Copa CONMEBOL. In 1995 they reached the quarter-finals and the following year were eliminated in the first round. Cobreloa have 8 Primera División titles and 1 Copa Chile title making them the most successful side outside Santiago in Chile and one of the four biggest clubs of the country.

Domestic League Chart with each tier division who the team has participated since 1977.

Notes

• In 1977, the team go to primera división de Chile.
• In 2015, the team was relegated to Primera B de Chile.
• In 2023, it is promoted to Chile's first Division.
• In 2024, it descends to the first B in Chile, being the second in its history