The history of Club Atlético River Plate covers over 120 years of the professional Argentine sports club based in the Belgrano barrio of Buenos Aires. River Plate is best known for its professional association football department, which has won Argentina's Primera División championship a record 38 times, most recently in the 2023 campaign. River Plate have also won 16 national cups, making River Argentina's most successful team in domestic competitions with 54 titles in total.
At international level, River have won 18 titles, including four Copa Libertadores, one Intercontinental Cup, one Supercopa Sudamericana, one Copa Sudamericana, three Recopa Sudamericanas, one Copa Interamericana, one Suruga Bank Championship, a record five Copa Aldaos, and one Tie Cup.
Founded in 1901 or 1904 in the times of the Amateur era, the club was promoted to the first divsion 1909, where they manged to finish as runners-up as underdogs. In the next decade, River Plate consolidated theirselves as a competitor for the league titles as they never exited the top five and won their first two trophies: the Copa Competencia and the Tie Cup. In the first years of the professional era, started in 1931, they won three league championships and signed Bernabé Ferreyra for a then world record transfer. The 1940s saw "La Máquina", a ten title winning squad including the likes of Juan Carlos Muñoz, José Manuel Moreno, Adolfo Pedernera, Ángel Labruna, Félix Loustau, Alfredo Di Stefano, and Omar Sivori; considered one of the best of all times. A great drought of titles occured between 1957 and 1975, until it was cut by Labruna, now the head coach, where his team won 1975 Metropolitano championship along with five more titles in the years that followed. The 1980s to 1990s saw great periods of international and domestic success as they won the 1986 Copa Libertadores, the 1986 Intercontinental Cup versus Steaua București, the 1996 Copa Libertadores, and three straight champions between 1996 and 1998. Nevertheless, troubled times came in the 2000s and early 2010s; in 2011, River Plate was relegated to the second division for their first and only time in their history after failing to win a relegation play-off against CA Belgrano. The club only remained in the lower leagues for a year; the appointment of Marcelo Gallardo saw a new period of great success as he became the manager with the most trophies won in the club's history, with fourteen.
Amateur era (1901–1931)
Foundation
In the early months of 1901, in the barrio of La Boca, groups of adolescents started playing football as a social activity and forming two clubs: Santa Rosa and La Rosales. Santa Rosa originated with three boys, ; Enrique Salvarezza and Enrique Balza, who used to meet each other in the deposit of the Wilson, Sons' deputy manager, Alberto Jacobs, in the Dársanera Sur to learn English and socialise. Bard suggested playing football to the group, attracting several local youth and leading to the club's formal establishment. Only a hundred meters from Santa Rosa was , founded by fourteen boys who socialised at a residence on Almirante Brown Street. Many of the members of both clubs were sons of inmigrants or middle-class; Santa Rosa included Bard, an Austro-Hungarian jew, and Isidoro Kitzler, an Indian born in Mumbai during the times of the British Raj. Meanwhile, almost all members in La Rosales were sons of inmigrants from the Italian or Spanish diaspora.
As a friendship of both teams grew, Kitzler proposed to merge the both teams, which resulted in the foundation of Club Atlético River Plate. Its foundation date remains disputed; the date of 25 May 1901 is sustained by River Plate since 1912, while in 2004, the (CIHF) proposed 15 May 1904 as the true date of foundation following an investigation of a variety of secondary and primary contemporary sources that repudiated the official date. The new club was chose its name following a collective vote where "River Plate" came out victorious after beating the other candidates of "Forward" and "Juventud Boquense". Pedro Martínez, one of the founding members, came up with the name after he had seen boxes in the Dique 3 dock in Buenos Aires, listed as "The River Plate", an alternative name for Río de la Plata, while construction workers of the place were playing a football match in their spare time. Bard was chosen to serve as the club's first president. He would later become a congressman for the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR). La Rosales' field was used as the club's first ground, designed by founding member Bernardo Messina, which was located on Dársena Sud of the Port of Buenos Aires, just behind the Wilson, Sons' coal yards. Managers of the yard and family members of the team's players helped to maintain the stadium by adding goals, posts and wire fencing. According to Bard, the red stripe on River's shirt was made from left-overs of red fabric found in a cart belonging to the coal yard, which was then made into stripes and added on top of white shirts that the club was using to play their matches. Following match reports from El Diario and La Argeñtina, presented by the CIHF, River Plate played its first game on 28 May 1904, thirteen days after its foundation, against General Mitre in 10 victory. On 11 June, a 30 defeat versus Racing Club would become the club's second match.
Amateur competitions
Years in the lower leagues (19051908)
In 1905, River Plate became affiliated to the Argentine Football Association (AFA) and inscribed itself to play in zone A of the third division in the same year. On 30 April, they debuted against Asociación de Medicina in a 23 loss with the following line-up: S. Zanni; Ceballos and Tarrico; Bard, Moltedo and Juanich; Kitzler, Martínez, Rolón, Flores and . The team finished second to last in their zone, with Colegio Militar being behind them with zero points. In the following year, River Plate registered a team to play in the second division, where it had another poor performance, losing 7 of the 12 matches featured across the season. The Minister of Agriculture of Argentina ordered the eviction of the stadium's land in 1906. José Bernasconi, director of Naval storages "Dresco", gave the club a land located near small bridge of Sarandí in Greater Buenos Aires, therefore River Plate moved there to play its home games. In the 1907 season, the team rebounced and made a successful campaign, finishing 1st in its section but subsequently going on to lose the promotion final to Nacional de Floresta by the minimum at Ferro Carril Oeste stadium, therefore losing promotion to the first division. By that time, members of the club proposed to return to the same field in Dársena Sud because the field had not been replaced by the Government. As a result, River Plate returned to its first field.
After gaining promotion, Nacional de Floresta made their debut in the top fight in the 1908 season; however, after disputing two matches, the AFA decided to revoke the team's affiliation to the organisation. This was consequential to a tree near the stadium's regulatory boundaries, deemed as a possible danger to players, that couldn't be removed due to Nacional not owning the landmass where their games where they played in. The final decision would be taken on 2 June, and as multiple of Nacional's players wanted to continue playing the sport, River Plate decided to take advantage of this by incorporating the club's best players for their second division campaign of 1908. River, that had already commenced its season, had four wins in a row before the incorporation of Nacional's players and were on top of its group with eight points. Their following league match was against Estudiantil Porteño's B team, marking Nacional's players debut in the league season after the players had lost to Quilmes' secondary team in the Copa Bullrich. They went on to win with a shattering 50 and continued to win across the season, qualifying for the promotion play-offs and topping group B with 33 points and one loss.
For the play-off semifinal, River Plate confronted Ferro Carril Oeste and exited with a 51 victory over the opposing team. The final was played on December 13, 1908, at GEBA Stadium, where River defeated Racing Club by 2–1 after extra time. However, the match was declared null due to River supporters jumped onto the field to celebrate with the players, so a new match had to be played. In the second game (held on December 27), River Plate defeated Racing Club again with a hammering 7–0, therefore promoting to Primera División. The line-up for that game was Luraschi; Chiappe, Politano; Messina, Morroni, Chagneaud; Anempodisto García, Griffero, Abaca Gómez, Elías Fernández, Priano.
Ups and downs during first years in the top flight (19091913) As underdogs, River Plate kicked off their debut season in the top flight with four wins and two draws, only losing their unbeaten run against Alumni Athletic Club. Nevertheless, this loss briefly engulfed the team's morale, which led River to successively get thrashed by Belgrano Athletic Club in 60 and 14 losses. In spite of the heavy losses, River Plate bounced back and continued to gain positive results across the season. Although they suffered two more losses against San Isidro and Porteño, the club would go on to finish second with twenty-four points, eight points behind Alumni, the league's champion. However, in national cups, the team gave disappointing performances, exiting the Copa de Honor in the first round and the Copa Competencia in the round of 16. For the following sixteen game season, higher expectations were met due to the club's notable debut in the first division. River Plate delivered during the first half of its campaign; however, poor results during the later half the team a poor result on the table, finishing the league season third to last and exiting the Copa de Honor and Copa Competencia early on. The 1911 season gave similar results, although they responded to the previous season with a midtable finish.