Chile–Peru football rivalry
football rivalry between Chile and Perú
The Chile–Peru football rivalry, also known as the Clásico del Pacifico, is a long-standing association football rivalry between the national football teams of Peru and Chile and their respective aficionados. Both teams compete in FIFA's South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL). Matches between the two nations are keenly contested and their games have a reputation for fierceness in and off the field of play, fueled by political disputes.
Sports media outlets have listed this rivalry, which is also known in Spanish as the Clásico del Pacífico (Pacific Derby), among the most competitive in association football. The derby's name refers to the Pacific Ocean, as both countries are neighbors in South America's Pacific coast, and the winner "earns bragging rights as the best team" in this side of the continent. According to sports historian Richard Henshaw, Chile and Peru traditionally compete with each other over the rank of fourth-best national team in South America (after Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, which are located in the continent's Atlantic side).
Although American journalists link the rivalry as a direct consequence of the War of the Pacific, Chilean historian Sebastián Salinas argues that the football rivalry between Chile and Peru is more recent, dating specifically to the centenary commemorations of the war in the 1970s. According to Salinas, the dictatorships of Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Francisco Morales Bermúdez in Peru promoted a nationalist animosity to these games to divert public attention. Moreover, the rise of football hooliganism, from the Argentine barra brava sports culture that influenced Chile and Peru in the 1980s, further intensified the rivalry.
Chile and Peru have played against each other 88 times in friendlies and tournament matches.
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