Estudiantes de Mérida

Everything began when Mérida won both Junior Championships held in this city in 1969 and 1970. This generated interest in establishing a professional football team in the city, known as a major student and tourist center of Venezuela. The late Don José Arano (of Basque origin) and Luis Ghersi Govea made the initial legal contacts with Major League Soccer authorities and the Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF). After completing the appropriate steps in Caracas, they contacted Guillermo Soto Rosa, who in turn reached out to other colleagues, including engineers Ramon Chiarelli and Gabriel Angarita. They expressed interest in the emerging project and helped promote the idea in Mérida, alongside Luis Jimenez Ron, Amadis Canizales, Daniel D 'Jesus Trejo, Eli Joseph Camacho, Fausto Ghiraldini, and others. By then, join institutional and public efforts, the then president of the University of Los Andes, Pedro Rincón Gutiérrez and Dr. Briceno Ferrigni, then Governor of the state of Mérida, who together perform all the steps of rigor to the entities coordinating professional soccer in Venezuela. At the same time, running the works related to the improvement and expansion of the football stadium facilities most of Mérida, Guillermo Soto Rosa Stadium, located in a popular area of the city between the Santa Juana, Pie del Llano, santa Monica, Cuatricentenario and Campo de Oro. The first team's headquarters, is a modest apartment, where on April 4, 1971, meet 58 people in order to form…