INDEPENDIENTE RIVADAVIA - HOME SHIRT 2025
Club Sportivo Independiente Rivadavia are an Argentine club from Mendoza, the wine-country capital in the west of the country. Founded in 1913 and taking their full name after a 1919 merger with Sportivo Rivadavia, they are known as La Lepra (The Leprosy), a nickname earned from a 1920 charity match played to raise funds for a hospital treating leprosy patients. They also answer to the Azules del Parque, and their home is the Estadio Bautista Gargantini, which opened back in 1925 with a game against Uruguayan giants Peñarol.
The 2025 campaign, during which this classic blue home shirt was worn, was the 110th in the club's history and only their second consecutive season in the Argentine top flight. Under manager Alfredo Berti, La Lepra reached the Round of 16 of the Torneo Apertura before settling into mid-table in the Torneo Clausura. The league, though, was only ever going to be a footnote to a season that finally gave the club something it had waited more than a century for.
That something was the Copa Argentina. Independiente Rivadavia went all the way in the 2025 edition, knocking out bigger names along the way and famously eliminating River Plate in the semi-finals, a goalless draw settled 4-3 on penalties. In the final on 5 November they faced Argentinos Juniors, held their nerve through a tense, level affair, and won 5-3 in the shootout to lift the first major trophy in the club's history.
The hero was Colombian winger Sebastian Villa, who was named Man of the Match in the final and buried the decisive penalty to send Mendoza into raptures. Villa had also been the standout in the semi-final win over River, dragging the underdogs to a final nobody outside the province had predicted. Victory carried more than silverware: as champions, Independiente Rivadavia sealed a place in the group stage of the 2026 Copa Libertadores, the continent's premier competition, for the very first time.
Follow the club on X: @CSIRoficial
