Club de Deportes Cobreloa S.A.D.P. (), commonly referred to as Cobreloa, is a professional Chilean football club based in Calama, Región de Antofagasta, Chile. They compete in the Primera B. The club's home ground is the Estadio Zorros del Desierto, Currently, trained by the coach, Mario Salas.
Founded on 7 January 1977, by the initiative of various local groups and the Chilean state-owned enterprise, CODELCO. This club was created starting from the Legal Personality of the local club, Deportes El Loa. On 30 March 2006, the club changed to a Limited sports company with the unanimous approval of 56 of its socios (members). According to the 2023 year public report, the capital of the club is $7.534 billion CLP ($7,760,020.00 USD) spread on 1.100.000 shares of stock without nominal value, mostly owned by the socios (members of club), since 2013, by means of an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on second call, with 1099,999 of them and the president of the club with 2 share, the first is in his capacity as president of the club and the other is as president of the board of directors of the corporation. In 2024 the first team budget was $77,900 million CLP.
The club's professional debut in Segunda división professional de Chile was in 1977, achieving the promotion to Primera División in the same year. The club has won the Primera División title 8 times, the 1986 Copa Polla Lan Chile and the 2023 Primera B de Chile. Some of its rivalries are with Club Social y Deportivo Colo-Colo team in the Clásico Albo-Loíno, Club de Deportes Cobresal who dispute the Clasico del Cobre and Deportes Antofagasta in the Clasico de la región de Antofagasta.
In 2019, The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation sorted out in the 71st position in the Worldwide Historical Ranking of Clubs. In CONMEBOL Libertadores Ranking 2025 it is in 67th position.
History 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 28 July 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, 17 December 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.
Sport Cóndor has among its accolades the local championships of the Asociación de Calama, for 1961 and 1962.
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. Its subsequent attempts to enter professional football in the country independently are recorded. However, despite retaining the legal status of Sport Cóndor, it used the name Deportes El Loa, registering on 28 January 1970.
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 February of this year, the team faced a row of friendly matches in the Estadio Municipal de Calama, against Unión San Felipe, versus Coquimbo Unido, winning both the matches by one goal to null, a draw between Colo-Colo to two goals tie and versus 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. To celebrate the first anniversary of the Chilean nationalization of copper, Calama offers a tribute at the Estadio Municipal of the city, in that event, Deportes El Loa plays a friendly match against Colo-Colo, losses by 2-5.
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.