 | ||||
| Full name | Deportivo Binacional Fútbol Club | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicknames | El Poderoso del Sur El Puma del Sur | |||
| Founded | 18 December 2010; 14 years ago (2010-12-18) | |||
| Ground | Estadio Guillermo Briceño Rosamedina | |||
| Capacity | 20,030 | |||
| Owner | Juan Carlos Aquino | |||
| Manager | Claudio Bustamante | |||
| League | Liga 1 | |||
| 2023 | Liga 1, 17th of 19 (relegated) | |||
| Website | http://www.facebook.com/deportivobinacionalfc | |||
Deportivo Binacional Fútbol Club, formerlyEscuela Municipal Deportivo Binacional, known as justBinacional, is aPeruvian professional football club fromJuliaca in thePuno Region. The team plays in thePeruvian Primera División after being reinstated by thePeruvian Football Federation in 2025.
The club was founded on 18 December 2010, by the mayor of theDesaguadero District, Juan Carlos Aquino, under the nameClub Deportivo Binacional de Desaguadero. The district is close to the Peru–Bolivia border and thus was calledBinacional, or Bi-national in English.
The club debuted in theLiga Superior de Puno of the2011 Copa Perú tournament and finished fourth in the standings with 14 points.
The following year, the club finished second in theLiga Superior de Puno with 21 points and advanced to theDepartmental Stage where it also finished second, thus allowing them to advance to theRegional Stage. Binacional became theRegion VIII champions after finishing the first of its group and beatingAlfonso Ugarte fromPuno in the regional finals on penalties after a 0–0 draw. They proceeded to play in theNational Stage. In the Round of 16, Binacional defeatedDeportivo CREDICOOP fromTacna on penalties after an aggregate score of 3–3. However, thePeruvian Football Federation's Justice Court retired the team from the tournament.
Binacional repeated a similar campaign in2013. The club qualified to theRegional Stage and finished the first of its group ofRegion VIII. In theNational Stage, they facedSan Simón fromMoquegua in the Round of 16. They won the first leg 1–0 but lost the second leg 0–2, thus eliminating them from the tournament with an aggregate score of 1–2. San Simón eventually advanced to the finals and would go on to win the tournament.
In2014, Binacional reached theRegional Stage for the third year in a row. They finished third of their group with 7 points, behindUnión Alto Huarca fromCusco andUnión Fuerza Minera fromPuno and were not able to advance to theNational Stage. Later on, Fuerza Minera would become the runner-up of the tournament.
TheCopa Perú restructured its format for the2015 season. This year Binacional was eliminated in the Departmental Stage afterPolicial Santa Rosa fromPuno defeated them on a 1–2 aggregate score.
Binacional switched its locality to thePaucarpata District in theArequipa Region in 2016, on the orders of the club president, Juan Carlos Aquino. The team purchased the playing rights ofEscuela Municipal de Paucarpata, who participated in theLiga Distrital de Paucarpata. As part of the merger, the club changed its official name toEscuela Municipal Deportivo Binacional.
That year, Binacional started its campaign winning 8 out of 9 games of theLiga Distrital de Paucarpata, scoring 70 goals and finishing first place in the standings withLuis 'Puchito' Flores as head coach. It then surpassed the Regional and Departmental stages without difficulty to reach theNational Stage as Arequipa Region's runner-up. In this stage, the team won 4 games and tied 2 to finish second in the overall league standings of 50 participants and thus qualifying to the Round of 16. In this round, Binacional faced againstOctavio Espinosa fromIca, winning the first leg 2–1 and the second leg 3–1 to advance to the quarter-final with an aggregate score of 5–2. Then, the team beatCarlos Orellana, also fromIca, with a 6–4 global score after winning 6–3 on the first leg of this round and losing 0–1 in the second leg, allowing them to play thefinal group stage orLa Finalísima inLima as one of the four best Peruvian amateur teams. It surprisingly lost 1–0 in the first match of this stage to the eventual fourth-place teamRacing fromHuamachuco. The second game was against eventual championSport Rosario fromHuaraz which it lost 2–3 with an own goal byCarlos Aspilcueta at the 73rd minute. The team finished 3rd overall after beatingDeportivo Hualgayoc by 1–0 and thus preventing it from winning the tournament.
Binacional had a great start to its2017 campaign by qualifying to the departmental stage of theCopa Perú and winning all of its matches to qualify to theNational Stage. In the first round of this stage, the team won four games, tied one, and lost one and placed twelfth in the standings out of 50 teams. This allowed them to play the second round where they faced againstLeón de Huánuco for a spot in the Round of 16. Binacional won both legs, 3–1 away inHuánuco and 8–1 at home inArequipa for a global score of 11–2.
In the Round of 16, Binacional faced against theLima Region champion,Defensor Laure Sur. They won the first leg 4–0 and lost the second leg 1–2, thus advancing to the quarter-finals with a global score of 5–2. Then, they played againstIca Region representativeUnión San Martín. The teams tied in the first leg with a score of 1–1 but Binacional was able to win on the second leg 4–1 and to reachLa Finalísima once again. Their first game was a 4–1 victory againstJosé Carlos Mariátegui fromTarapoto. It then tied 1–1 against tournament favoriteAtlético Grau fromPiura. This left both Atlético Grau and Binacional with the same number of points going into the last matchday. On the last matchday, Binacional won 1–0 againstEstudiantil CNI fromIquitos and Atletico Grau was able to defeat José Carlos Mariátegui. However, Binacional managed a better goal difference of +5 compared to Grau's +3. As such,El Poderoso won the tournament and promotion to the2018 Torneo Descentralizado.
Deportivo Binacional debuted in thePeruvian first division in the first tournament of the season, the2018 Torneo de Verano. The first match for the recently promoted club was a 0–2 loss againstCantolao.[1] The next matchday saw the team beatUnión Comercio 2–1 inMoyobamba, in whichMilton Benítez scored the first goal for Binacional and an own goal from Comercio's defender secured the club's first victory in Peruvian first division.[2] At the end of the tournament, Binacional had won 5 matches, tied 6, and lost 3 to finish third of its group with 21 points.[3]
Before the start of the2018 Torneo Apertura, the team temporarily moved toMoquegua'sEstadio 25 de Noviembre in an effort to attract more fans.[4] By the end of the Torneo Apertura, the club was undefeated at this new location, winning 5 matches and tying 3. Binacional finished eighth in the standings with 23 points.[5] Then, the team had a rough start in the2018 Torneo Clausura which resulted in the release of head coachLuis 'Puchito' Flores.[6] He was replaced byMario Flores ahead of matchday 8 of the tournament, when the team was sitting at the bottom of the league table.[7] Binacional managed to finish the tournament thirteenth in the standings with 17 points. In the aggregate table, the team placed eighth with 59 points and gained a berth for the2019 Copa Sudamericana.[8]
After the end of the 2018 season, the club announced that they would be moving back to thePuno Region permanently, as well as modifying their badge to include a flag of Puno and reverting to its original nameDeportivo Binacional.[9] It enrolledEstadio Guillermo Briceño Rosamedina inJuliaca as their new home stadium, at 3824 meters above sea level. However, this stadium did not meet the necessary standards established byCONMEBOL to hold an international match, and thereforeEl Poderoso was forced to play their home games of the 2019 Copa Sudamericana at theEstadio Monumental de la UNSA inArequipa.[10]
The drawing for this tournament set Binacional to faceIndependiente fromArgentina for thefirst stage. The club's first game in an international competition was a 1–4 loss inAvellaneda, withJeferson Collazos scoring the only goal forEl Poderoso. The second leg was also a loss, this time in Arequipa with a 1–2 score. Binacional was eliminated from the competition with a 2–6 aggregate score.[11]
Binacional had a successful domestic campaign in2019 where it won theTorneo Apertura with 36 points, 4 points ahead of its nearer contender,Sporting Cristal.[12] It had an almost perfect run at home scoring 3 goal per game on average and only losing to another high-altitude team,Sport Huancayo. During this time it was led by Peruvian coachJavier Arce, who left the club after the first half of the season because of disagreements with the owners.[13] Some of the most important players for the club during the Torneo Apertura championship campaign were under-23 playerAndy Polar,Colombian strikerDonald Millán, andPeruvian forwardAldair Rodríguez.Roberto Mosquera took over as the new head coach for the second half of the season.[14] The team finished fourth in the standings of theTorneo Clausura with 28 points and qualified for the tournament semi-finals from which it received a bye into the tournament final after finishing second in the aggregate table with 64 points.[15] This also granted Binacional the opportunity to play the2020 Copa Libertadores, the most prestigious competition in South American club football, for the first time in its history.On 2 December 2019, a few days before the tournament final, Binacional playersJuan Pablo Vergara,Donald Millán, andJeferson Collazos were involved in an automobile accident while travelling between the cities ofPuno andJuliaca. All three players were taken to the nearest hospital from which Millán and Collazos were released a few hours later without any major injuries. Vergara suffered a perforation of the liver by a broken rib, triggering a haemorrhage from which he was not able to recuperate. At 23:25PET the club announced via social media that Vergara had died from injuries sustained during the accident. The next day the rest of the squad announced its intentions to go on with the tournament final in honor of their deceased teammate.[16]
The first leg of the2019 final was played on 8 December in Juliaca. Binacional won the first match by 4–1 againstAlianza Lima, who finished the game with only 10 players.Ángel Ojeda,Edson Aubert,Aldair Rodríguez, andDonald Millán scored for the home team. This game was the first to incorporate the use of thevideo assistant referee (VAR) review system in Peru's professional league. The second leg was played a week later on 15 December inLima which ended with at 2–0 in favor of Alianza Lima. Thus Binacional won its firstPeruvian Liga 1 championship with a global score of 4–3.[17]
Ahead of Binacional's title defence and debutCopa Libertadores campaign, key playersRodríguez,Millán,Aubert andHervé Kambou departed to joinAmérica de Cali,Universitario,Melgar andSport Huancayo respectively, and coachRoberto Mosquera was appointed bySporting Cristal.[18] With this significantly weakened squad, as well as the refusal of the Peruvian government to allow the club to play its home Libertadores matches in Juliaca (Binacional was only permitted to play inLima due to theCOVID-19 pandemic in Peru), the team's continental participation was a dismal one, including home and away defeats toRiver Plate by scorelines of 6–0 and 8–0, a 5–1 loss in Brazil againstSão Paulo and another defeat againstLDU Quito, losing 4–0. Binacional scored three goals and conceded 25, only winning one of their six group matches and losing the other five. Binacional set a negative record in the history ofLibertadores: it became the club with the worst goal difference in the history of the continental tournament's group stage, with -22, surpassing the previous record of -18, which belonged to9 de Octubre, fromEcuador (1966),Deportivo Italia (1985) andZamora (2015), both fromVenezuela.[19]The2020 Liga 1 season was also fairly unsuccessful, as the club could only finish the campaign in 13th position.
In 2023, they once again had a poor campaign, similar to 2021. In the2023 Copa Sudamericana, they were eliminated in the Preliminary Stage byUniversidad César Vallejo with a 3–1 scoreline. Returning to Liga 1, their performance was disappointing in both short tournaments. They reached the final matchday needing a home victory againstMelgar; however, they lost 1–2. WithUnión Comercio andSport Boys both winning their matches, Binacional were relegated to Liga2 for the following year.
The club was reinstated in the league after winning judicial cases against thePeruvian Football Federation, which increased the number of teams to 19.[20]
On 19 August 2025, thePeruvian Football Federation officially announced the exclusion ofBinacional from2025 Liga 1 and the2025 Torneo Juvenil Sub-18, following a court ruling that annulled the injunction which had allowed the club to return to the first division after its relegation in2023. In its statement, the FPF stated that the Juliaca-based team would be informed about its participation in future tournaments in due course.[21]
Binacional has used a sky blue shirt and shorts combination since its inception. Their away kit is a darker shade of blue for the shirt and pants. The crest is composed of aparted coat of arms. The bottom of half is a stylized sun above the waves ofLake Titicaca. The top half consisted of the flag of theArequipa Region. After the team returned to thePuno Region, the top half was changed to the flag of that region. The coat of arms issupported by twoPumas with anAdidas Telstar and three golden stars for a crown.
Estadio Guillermo Briceño Rosamedina has been Binacionals home stadium since 2018. Located inJuliaca, it has a capacity of 20,030 spectators. As a result of Binacionals promotion to thePrimera División in 2019, the stadium was remodeled and expanded. The new remodeled stadium added artificial lighting, better infrastructure, as well as meeting all the requirements required by Conmebol so that matches of South American competitions can be played.
| Type | Competition | Titles | Runner-up | Winning years | Runner-up years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National (League) | Primera División | 1 | — | 2019 | — |
| Copa Perú | 1 | — | 2017 | — | |
| Half-year / Short tournament (League) | Torneo Apertura | 1 | — | — | |
| National (Cups) | Supercopa Peruana | — | 1 | — | |
| Regional (League) | Región VIII | 1 | 1 | 2012 | 2013 |
| Liga Departamental de Arequipa | 1 | 1 | 2017 | 2016 | |
| Liga Departamental de Puno | 2 | 1 | 2013, 2014 | 2012 | |
| Liga Provincial de Arequipa | 1 | — | 2016 | — | |
| Liga Provincial de Chucuito | 3 | — | 2013, 2014, 2015 | — | |
| Liga Superior de Puno | — | 1 | — | 2012 | |
| Liga Distrital de Paucarpata | 1 | — | 2016 | — | |
| Liga Distrital de Desaguadero | 1 | — | 2015 | — |
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Below is a list of Deportivo Binacional managers from 2018, the club's first season in the Peruvian first division, until the present day.
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