On 25 March 1903, in Avellaneda, next to Buenos Aires, Racing Club was born, the team Argentinians call "La Academia". On 25 March 2027 it turns 124. Its shirt, sky blue and white like the Argentine flag, has a history full of twists.

Two teams become one

Racing's roots lie in Football Club Barracas al Sud, founded by students of the Colegio Nacional Central in May 1901. In 1902 a split produced a second team, Colorados Unidos del Sud. On 25 March 1903 the two sides came back together under one name and one flag, and that day is regarded as the club's official founding.

A French magazine for a name

The name has a story of its own. According to club tradition, one of the members, Germán Vidaillac, showed his friends a French motoring magazine with the word "RACING" on its cover. They liked the word, voted for it, and the team became Racing.

In 1905 the club joined the Argentine Football Association. It has never left Avellaneda since, where its stadium still stands today. Just a few blocks away lives its great rival, Independiente.

From white to sky blue and white

The first shirt was all white. In 1904 the team tried yellow and black stripes, but dropped them within a week because they looked too much like the shirt of Uruguay's CURCC. Next came a sky blue and salmon checked design and a blue shirt with a white horizontal band.

The big change came in 1910, on the centenary of the May Revolution. Racing then adopted sky blue and white vertical stripes, the colours of the Argentine flag, and never changed them again. As El Gráfico points out, though, Atlético Tucumán had already worn a similar shirt back in 1903.

The crest and "El Cilindro"

The minute book of 1903 already carried a seal with laurels and a ball. The current crest became official in the late 1920s: a shield with the word "Racing" at the top and seven vertical bands of sky blue and white.

Since 1950 the team has played at the Estadio Presidente Perón, which everyone calls "El Cilindro", "the Cylinder", because of its round shape. It was built on the site of the club's old ground and holds about 55,000 spectators, making it one of the biggest in Argentina.

"The first big one"

The nickname "La Academia" was born in the amateur era, when Racing won seven league titles in a row, from 1913 to 1919, and showed everyone how football should be played. It is also called "El Primer Grande", because it was the first of Argentina's big five to win a league title, a national cup and an international trophy.

1967 was its year: it won the Copa Libertadores and then the Intercontinental Cup against Celtic, with a goal by Juan Carlos Cárdenas in Montevideo. It thus became the first Argentine team to be crowned world champion.

The sky blue and white has been worn by legends such as Alberto Ohaco, Oreste Corbatta, Roberto Perfumo and Diego Milito. More recently, in 2024, Racing also celebrated the Copa Sudamericana, beating Cruzeiro 3-1 in the final.

Celebrate with us

124 years on, Racing's striped sky blue and white shirt remains one of the most classic in South America. It carries the flag of a country and the pride of an entire city.

Happy birthday, Academia! May El Cilindro always be full.

See our collectible jerseys at sportarena.gr.

Photo: Racing's Estadio Presidente Perón in Avellaneda – Sentencia Gráfica Estudio, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC0.