Valencia CF

Valencia

Full name	Valencia Club de Fútbol, S.A.D.
Nickname(s)	Ches[1] Blanquinegros (The Black and Whites) Murciélagos (The Bats) Valencianistas (Supporters)
Short name	Valencia, VCF, VAL
Founded	18 March 1919; 106 years ago (1919-03-18) (as Valencia Foot-ball Club)
Ground	Mestalla
Capacity	49,430[2]
Owner	Peter Lim
President	Kiat Lim
Head coach	Carlos Corberán
League	La Liga
2023–24	La Liga, 9th of 20
Website	valenciacf.com
Home colours Away colours Third colours
Current season

Valencia Club de Fútbol, S. A. D. (Spanish: [baˈlenθja ˈkluβ ðe ˈfuðβol]; Valencian: València Club de Futbol [vaˈlensi.a ˈklub de fubˈbɔl]),^[3] commonly referred to as Valencia CF or simply Valencia, is a Spanish professional football club based in Valencia, Spain, that currently plays in La Liga, the top flight of the Spanish league system. Valencia was founded in 1919 and has played its home games at the 49,430-seater Mestalla since his opening in 1923.^[2]

Valencia has won six La Liga titles, eight Copa del Rey titles, one Supercopa de España, and one Copa Eva Duarte. In European competitions, they have won two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, one UEFA Cup, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, two UEFA Super Cups, and one UEFA Intertoto Cup. They have also reached two consecutive UEFA Champions League finals (2000 and 2001). The IFFHS named World’s Best Club to Valencia in 2004. Valencia were also members of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs and since its end has been part of the original members of the European Club Association.

Five former members of the club have been inducted into the FIFA International Football Hall of Fame, a project dedicated to preserving the memory of important figures in football history. These include Alfredo Di Stéfano, Mario Alberto Kempes, Romário, Jorge Valdano and Didier Deschamps. Valencia also has four personalities in the FIFA 100, its induction taking place in 2004 as part of the centenary celebrations of FIFA's creation. The ches club is the team with the most Zarra Trophy winners (5), the fourth in the Zamora Trophy (9) and fifth in the Pichichi Trophy (6) at the national level, at the international level it’s the third Spanish team with the most FIFA World Player nominees (9) and the fourth in the Ballon d'Or (23), it has ten nominations for the Golden Boy Award, one for the 2019 Kopa Trophy with Lee Kang-in and one for the 2024 Yashin Trophy with Giorgi Mamardashvili. It has been included three times in the UEFA Team of the Year, with Santiago Cañizares and Kily González in 2001 and David Villa in 2010, the last repeating in the FIFPro World XI in the same year.

Four Valencia players were part of the Spanish national team that won the 2010 FIFA World Cup: David Villa, who won the Silver Boot as the second-highest scorer, tied with Thomas Müller on five goals and the Bronze Ball as the third best player in the final phase of the championship, Carlos Marchena, David Silva and Juan Mata. Seven of its members have managed to win Olympic Games medals throughout its history: David Albelda and Miguel Ángel Angulo, silver in Sydney 2000; Fabián Ayala, gold in Athens 2004; Éver Banega, gold in Beijing 2008; Carlos Soler, silver in Tokyo 2020; Cristhian Mosquera and Diego López, gold in Paris 2024.

Over the years, the club has achieved a global reputation for their prolific youth academy, or "Acadèmia." Products of their academy include world-class talents such as Miguel Tendillo, Ricardo Arias, Fernando Gómez, Andrés Palop, Javier Farinos, Raúl Albiol, David Albelda, Vicente Rodríguez, Gaizka Mendieta and David Silva. Current stars of the game to have graduated in recent years include Isco, Jordi Alba, Paco Alcácer, Juan Bernat, José Gayà, Carlos Soler, Ferran Torres, and Lee Kang-in.

Historically one of the biggest clubs in the world in terms of number of associates (registered paying supporters), with around 50,000 season ticket holders^[4] at their peak, the club began to decline in the mid-2010s. Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim acquired the team in 2014.^[5][6]