South America's Best Badges

12 countries, 12 great badges

While doing some research for another project, I discovered the badge of ‘Club Destroyers’ in Bolivia. It’s probably the greatest football badge of all time.

This inspired me to make a list of my favourite club crests from each of the 12 countries in South America. Hopefully you enjoy reading the list as much as I enjoyed making it, and let me know in the comments which ones I got wrong!

Argentina

It’s hard not to say Boca Juniors here, but I’m going to resist, simply because everyone already knows what it looks like.

Instead, we’re going with the brilliantly named ‘Club Deportivo Morón’.

A giant chicken playing football makes this one an easy winner. Up the Morons.

Bolivia

There was only going to be one winner here, with this being the crest that inspired me to make this list in the first place. Just feast your eyes on this:

I think what makes this masterpiece even better is the fact their nickname isn’t even the jaguars - it’s the canaries! Club Destroyers, even though you don’t know how to use an apostrophe, this is world class.

Brazil

This is another easy one. I had a brilliant time at Vasco da Gama, but pretty much the only thing I didn’t like about them was they didn’t have a dinosaur doing a thumbs up on the badge.

This is the badge of Sousa Esporte Clube, who play in Serie C in Brazil. I actually ordered this shirt when I was visiting Brazil, but it arrived at my hotel the day after I had left. Perhaps the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone.

Chile

I expected to say Colo Colo for this one, and not many people could have argued - it’s a really iconic badge. However, having not said Boca for Argentina because most people would have seen it already, I didn’t think it was fair to go on to include Chile’s most famous club.

Not taking the lazy choice paid off, when I found this:

This is the badge of 4th tier side ‘Club Brujas de Salamanca’. As you can probably tell, they’re nicknamed the witches, with the name paying tribute to the mythical stories of Salamancas from Argentine and Chilean folklore, hidden caves where witches and wizards would secretly gather to cast spells.

Colombia

Colombia revealed some great options, and I was really close to including Boyacá Chicó FC here, who have a castle in front of a blue and orange checkerboard pattern.

But in the end, I couldn’t resist what to me looks like a polar bear going down a slide, and either really enjoying it or having a terrible time. Meet Club Atlético Bucaramanga:

Ecuador

Ecuador, I was not familiar with your game. I found so many great options when researching this one that I could probably do a full article just on crests from this country alone - but in the end, I had to settle for this one:

How has a fish managed to kick the ball? Why are they out of the water? Who cares, look how happy they are. I’d never heard of them until 10 minutes ago and I kind of want to get this crest tattooed on me.

Guyana

I nearly lost hope for this article when browsing through the clubs from the GFF Elite League, the top level of football in Guyana. Badge after badge appeared that looked as if it had been created on Microsoft Paint ten minutes before the deadline to submit it to the FA, but then I found this:

Western Tigers, all I can say is thank you.

Paraguay

Not much to love here. If you’re an Ecuadorian football crest designer, move to Paraguay, because there is a lot of work for you to do. However, I was able to find this one:

This is the badge of ‘Club Sol de América de Asunción’, who currently play in the second tier.

Peru

We’re so back. There’s a lot of really interesting badges here, including ADC Juan Pablo II College, which features the face of Pope John Paul II. The crest of CD Los Chankas is also great and would certainly have won in some other countries, and both Deportivo Binacional FC and Molinos El Pirata FC are more than worth a look.

However, rules are rules, and I can only pick one. I don’t regret my choice:

Suriname

After agonising over Peru, this was an easy choice. With most of the badges in Suriname deeply uninspiring, this one stood out like an oasis in the desert:

Uruguay

This was another difficult choice. Perhaps every crest designer in Uruguay is busy adding even more stars to the jersey of the national team, because there weren’t too many standout options here. In the end, I went with this one. With a lack of choice, it made me laugh that it kind of looks like calling someone something extremely rude, only using the first letter of each word. I’m sure Uruguay has something better to offer than this, but I can’t find it - please make a suggestion in the comments!

Venezuela

Thankfully, we’re finishing on a high. This club sadly dissolved four years ago, but I’m including them anyway because it looks like a football team for a local library that was named after a Teletubby for some reason,

I could have researched this team more to discover why it looks like this, but a big reason why I like this is the mystery, so I’m not going down that Wikipedia rabbit hole.

I hope you enjoyed this list! If this post gets a decent amount of likes, I’ll make a similar list for some of the other continents. Adios!