History of Deportivo Saprissa, Costa Rica's Purple Monster

In March 1959, a football club from a country that had never played in a World Cup left home with its purple shirts and stayed away for 74 days. It passed through 25 countries and 38 cities and played 22 matches. The club was 24 years old.

The history of Deportivo Saprissa, the Purple Monster, starts with a boys' team in San José in 1935. Nobody could have guessed the rest. The club has won 40 Costa Rican league titles, more than any other club in the country, and along the way it went on that world tour, took over a stadium called the cave, and came home from the 2005 Club World Championship with a bronze medal.

Deportivo Saprissa history: how did a boys' team get this big?

On July 16, 1935, Roberto "Beto" Fernández put together a team of boys. Most accounts say it happened in his shoe store in the Los Ángeles neighbourhood of downtown San José. La República tells it a little differently. It credits two humble shoemakers, Fausto Leiva and Fernández. Either way, the founder made shoes and the club started in a shop.

The name came from the man who helped with equipment. Fernández asked Ricardo Saprissa Aymá to supply the uniforms, and the team became known as Deportivo Saprissa. Saprissa was a serious athlete. He was born in El Salvador to Spanish parents. He won the Copa del Rey with Espanyol in 1929. In the episode, Chris Horwedel says his belief that sport could educate young people became the club's operating system.

The colour has its own story. The 1937 kit was meant to be red and blue, but mixed-up threads produced a purple-burgundy shade. That version is widely repeated, and I haven't found a primary document that settles it. It's still a better story than a committee choosing purple.

Then the club climbed. It won the third division in 1947 and the second in 1948, and made its top-flight debut on August 21, 1949. It beat Club Sport La Libertad 3-1, and the episode names Manuel Rodríguez as the scorer of its first top-flight goal. The first league title followed in 1952, without a single defeat. A second came in 1953, with one loss.

The academy, the cantera, was the engine. Chris describes a club that built squads almost entirely from Costa Rican players, and for decades kept a Costa Rican-only policy. The logic was plain. A boy in the youth teams could look at the first team and see that the route existed.

Why did Saprissa travel around the world in 1959?

Because nobody was going to invite them. Chris calls the tour "a statement of possibility". The club describes it as the first round-the-world trip by a Latin American team. Wikipedia's club history gives the same claim.

The numbers need care. The club passed through 25 countries, but the 22 games were played in nine of them, with 14 wins, one draw and seven defeats. Chris says the results were mixed, and they were, though 14 wins from 22 is not bad for a trip that crossed four continents.

The scoreboard wasn't the point. The players saw different pitches, languages and crowds, and brought that back to San José. Two years later Real Madrid came to them. On August 15, 1961, Saprissa played Real Madrid, with Puskás, Di Stéfano and Gento, and lost 4-2.

Why is it called the Purple Monster, and what is La Cueva?

The nickname El Monstruo Morado has a traceable date. Wikipedia says the newspaper Diario Extra gave it to the team during a derby in 1987, because of the club's enormous following. A reporter said the noise made him feel he was in the presence of a thousand-headed monster. Chris tells the usual version, in which a packed stand moves like one purple creature.

The monster needed a den. Saprissa had rented and shared the National Stadium. It bought a site in 1965, and after six years of construction the Estadio Ricardo Saprissa Aymá opened on August 27, 1972. The opening match was a 1-1 draw with Comunicaciones of Guatemala. Comunicaciones' Peter Sandoval scored the first goal there. Chris says Eduardo "Flaco" Chavarría scored the first purple one.

Supporters call it La Cueva. The stands are steep, in Tibás, and close to the pitch. Chris puts it well: "A national following suddenly had a cave."