Club Atlético Boca Juniors (CABJ) (Spanish pronunciation: [kluβ aˈtletiko ˈβoka ˈʝunjoɾs]) is an Argentine professional sports club based in La Boca, a neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. The club is best known for its men's professional football team which, since its debut in Primera División in 1913, has always played in the top division.
The team has won 74 official titles, the most by any Argentine club. National titles won by Boca Juniors include 35 Primera División championships, and 17 domestic cups. Boca Juniors also owns an honorary title awarded by the Argentine Football Association for their successful tour of Europe in 1925.
Internationally, Boca Juniors has won 22 major titles, with 18 organised by CONMEBOL and the rest organised jointly by the Argentine and Uruguayan Associations. Consequently, Boca is ranked third in the world in terms of number of complete international titles, after Real Madrid (34) and Egyptian side Al Ahly (26). Boca Juniors' international achievements also include one Tie Cup, one Copa de Honor Cousenier, and two Copa Escobar-Gerona, organized jointly by AFA and AUF together. Their success usually has the Boca Juniors ranked among the IFFHS's Club World Ranking Top 25, which they have reached the top position in six times (mostly during the coaching tenure of Carlos Bianchi). Boca was named by the IFFHS as the top South American club of the first decade of the 21st century (2001–2010). It was designated by FIFA as the joint twelfth-best Club of the Century, in December 2000, occupying the same place as Liverpool of England.
Boca Juniors has a fierce rivalry with River Plate, and matches between them are known as the Superclásico. It is the most heated rivalry in Argentina and one of the biggest in the world, as the clubs are the two most popular in the country. Boca's home stadium is the Estadio Alberto J. Armando, better known colloquially as La Bombonera.
In addition to men's football, Boca Juniors has professional women's football and basketball teams. Other (amateur) activities held in the club are: bocce, boxing, chess, field hockey, futsal, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, handball, martial arts (judo, karate, and taekwondo), swimming, volleyball, weightlifting, and wrestling. As of January 2023, Boca Juniors ranked first among the clubs with the most members in Argentina, with 315,879.
On 3 April 1905, a group of boys, who were the sons of Italian immigrants (more specifically from Genoa), met in order to find a club. The house where the meeting was arranged was Esteban Baglietto's and the other four people who attended were Alfredo Scarpatti, Santiago Sana and brothers Juan Farenga and Teodoro Farenga .
Other important founding members include Arturo Penney, Marcelino Vergara, Luis Cerezo, Adolfo Taggio, Giovanelli, Donato Abbatángelo, and Bertolini. Before the club was officially established in the La Boca district of Buenos Aires in April 1905, Irish immigrant from Cashel, County Tipperary, Patrick McCarthy (footballer, born 1871), taught the fundamentals and rules of the game to young local youths, including future club founders like Esteban Baglietto, so when these boys founded the club they asked the Irishman to be its first manager. Like their Buenos Aires rivals, Vélez Sarsfield, Boca hence trace their roots to an Irish connection from an era when the Irish Argentines community was at its zenith.
In 1913, Boca was promoted to Primera División after some previous failed attempts. This was possible when the Argentine Association decided to increase the number of teams in the league from 6 to 15.
In 1925, Boca made its first trip to Europe to play in Spain, Germany and France. The squad played a total of 19 games, winning 15 of them. For that reason Boca was declared "Campeón de Honor" (Champion of Honour) by the Association.
During successive years, Boca consolidated as one of the most popular teams of Argentina, with a huge number of fans not only in the country but worldwide.
According to the club's official site, the original jersey colour was a white shirt with thin black vertical stripes, being then replaced by a light blue shirt and then another striped jersey before adopting the definitive blue and gold. Nevertheless, another version states that Boca Juniors' first jersey was pink, although it has been questioned by some journalists and historians who state that Boca, most probably, never wore a pink jersey, by pointing out the lack of any solid evidence and how this version stems from, and is only supported on, flawed testimonies.
According to legend, when Boca played Nottingham de Almagro in 1906, both teams wore such similar shirts that the match was played to decide which team would get to keep it. Boca lost, and decided to adopt the colors of the flag of the first boat to sail into the port at La Boca. This proved to be a Swedish ship, therefore the yellow and blue of the Swedish flag were adopted as the new team colours. Reportedly, it was the dockworker Juan Bricchetto who saw the ship, which was named Drottning Sophia. The first version had a yellow diagonal band, which was later changed to a horizontal stripe.
Through Boca Juniors history, the club has worn some alternate "rare" models, such as the AC Milan shirt in a match versus Universidad de Chile (whose uniform was also blue) in the 1963 Copa Libertadores. When Nike became official kit provider in 1996, the first model by the company introduced two thin white stripes surrounding the gold band, causing some controversy. The brand also introduced a silver jersey designed exclusively for the 1998 Copa Mercosur. For the 100th anniversary of the club, Nike launched commemorative editions of several models worn by the club since its foundation, including a version of the 1907 shirt with the diagonal sash, which was worn in two matches during the 2005 Torneo de Verano (Summer Championship). Other models were a black and white striped jersey (similar to Juventus FC) and a purple model, worn in the 2012 and 2013 "Torneos de Verano", respectively.
Nevertheless, no shirt caused more controversy than the pink model released as the away jersey for the 2013–14 season, which was widely rejected by the fans. Because of that, the introduction of this model (to be initially worn v. Rosario Central) was delayed until the last fixture when Boca played Gimnasia y Esgrima (LP). As a replacement for the pink model, Nike designed a fluorescent yellow shirt launched that same season.
In 2016, the club wore a black jersey for the first time in its history, originally launched as the third kit. Although the President of the club, Daniel Angelici, had stated that the black kit would never be worn, the kit debuted in a match v. Tigre, only four days after the announcement.
Adidas is the club's current kit supplier since January 2020. The agreement (which will remain in force until 2029) was signed for US $10,069,000 plus 40% in royalties per year for the club.
Uniforms worn by the team through its history:
Kit suppliers and shirt sponsors