🏴‍☠ Pirate love: Coquimbo Unido, Chile’s underdogs making history | OneFootball

This year, 2025, has been full of teams with little tradition standing out in various places.

Cases like Mjällby, a village team on the shores of the Baltic Sea that has already won the Swedish league, Mirassol and its great campaign in its first appearance in the top tier of the Brasileirão, and Hearts, which emerges as a candidate to end the Celtic and Rangers hegemony in Scotland.

Another example can also be found in South America. It is the Chilean team Coquimbo Unido, the Piratas Aurinegros.

Founded on August 30, 1958 in Coquimbo, a city of 180,000 inhabitants located north of Santiago, the club will return to compete in the Libertadores in 2026.

This achievement was secured in the last round of the local league after their THIRTEENTH consecutive victory—celebrated against O'Higgins away from home.

Just one more win in the final five rounds will be enough to secure the UNPRECEDENTED title of the Chilean top division.

They have 62 points, compared to Universidad Católica's 48. Semi-finalists in the current Sula, La U is only sixth, with 42.

Their next challenge will be against Unión La Calera on Sunday (2). The match will be at home at the Francisco Sánchez Rumoroso Stadium.

This winning streak by Coquimbo is the second longest in history. Equal to the one celebrated by Universidad de Chile in 1999.

The longest is also by La U, with 16, in the 1963/1964 season.

Among the individual standouts of the team is Panamanian striker Cecilio Waterman, 34 years old, with eight goals.

And Argentine midfielder Matías Palavecino, 27, with six assists. Only Leo Valencia, formerly of Botafogo and now at Audax Italiano, has more (eight).

Runner-up and appearances in Liberta and Sula

Coquimbo has 30 participations in the top tier of Chilean football—compared to 36 in the Second Division.

Their first great campaign came in 1991, when they finished as runners-up. They were only surpassed by Colo-Colo, who won the only Libertadores title for Chilean football that same year.

This performance earned the Pirates a spot in the 1992 Libertadores—where they won only one of eight matches.

After a long period in the top division, Coquimbo was relegated in 2007. They only returned in 2019.

And they soon secured a place in the 2020 Copa Sudamericana with a team featuring Mauricio Pinilla as a standout. They reached the semifinals, ending an eight-year drought for Chilean clubs at that stage of South American tournaments.

They ended up relegated that same year, returning in 2022.

The good campaign in 2023 guaranteed another appearance in the Sula, this time for the 2024 edition.

They knocked out Católica in the first round and joined Group H, the same as future champions Racing and Red Bull Bragantino. They finished in third place.

Their biggest rival is Club de Deportes La Serena. And Coquimbo makes a point of highlighting on its social networks that it is EL ÚNICO INTERNACIONAL DE LA REGIÓN.

And soon, it should also be the only one with a title in the Chilean top division.

📸 Photos: Reproduction/Coquimbo Unido

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.