Pequeña Copa del Mundo and Other International Club Tournaments in Caracas



Pequeña Copa del Mundo (Little World Cup)

A tournament held in Venezuela from 1952 until 1975.

The tournament was originally organised by Venezuelan companies as a kind of predecessor of the Intercontinental Cup, but with usually three to eight participants, half from Europe and half from South America. On the European side, the Latin Cup may have initially been used as qualifying tournament. Few things are known about the South American selection criteria but the organisers' intention was to invite the best teams from both continents.

After the start of the European Champions Cup (and also due to security problems in Venezuela) the tournament lost its appeal and was discontinued in 1957. In 1963, the tournament was revived but with no fixed periodicity and without technical criteria to select the invited participants. Due to this and to the concurrence of the Intercontinental Cup, along the sixties the tournament rapidly lost in status as the quality of the participants decreased.

During this period (1963-1975), the tournament was also called Taça Ciudad de Caracas, the name of the trophy awarded to the winners. Also, the champions often were awarded with other trophies than the Little World Cup and, due to this, these tournaments (especially from 1963 on) are sometimes called by other names, as documented below:

Palmares

Pequeña Copa del Mundo (Little World Cup)
 1 1952       Real Madrid CF
 2 1953 (1st) Millonarios
 3 1953 (2nd) Corinthians
   1954      not held
 4 1955       São Paulo FC
 5 1956       Real Madrid CF
 6 1957       FC Barcelona
   1958-1962 not held
Pequeña Copa del Mundo (Little World Cup) / Taça Ciudad de Caracas
   1963       São Paulo FC 
   1964      not held
   1965       SL Benfica                [Copa María Dolores Gabeka]
   1966       Valencia CF               [Troféo Simón Bolívar]
   1967       Athletic Club de Bilbao   [Copa Cuadricentenario de Caracas]
   1968      not held
   1969       Spartak Trnava            [Torneo Reyes de Caracas]
   1970       Vitória FC (Setúbal)      [Torneo Reyes de Caracas]
   1971-1974 not held
   1975       East Germany XI
NB: for 1966, 1967 and 1969 it is not certain that tournaments linked
    from here belonged to the series.

Other Club Tournaments

From 1958 to 1981 many tournaments were held in Caracas. These tournaments are generically called "Torneo de Caracas" although they are (just like Pequeña Copa del Mundo) often called by the name of the trophy (or one of the trophies) awarded to the winner, as documented below:

Palmares

1958 Bangu AC         [Copa Navidad de Caracas]
1966 Botafogo FR      [Copa Círculo de Pediodicos Deportivos (Journalists Circle Cup)]
1967 Botafogo FR      [Copa Círculo de Pediodicos Deportivos (Journalists Circle Cup)]
1968 Botafogo FR      [Troféo Dr. Julio Bustamante]
1968 Botafogo FR      [Troféo Oldemario Ramos]
1969 Dinamo Moskva    [Copa Carnaval de Caracad]
1970 Botafogo FR
1970 Cruzeiro EC
1976 RC Deportivo (La Coruña)
1977 Cruzeiro EC
1980 Real Madrid CF   [Copa Ciudad de Caracad]
1981 Sporting CP      [Copa Ciudad de Caracad]
Note: there was a trip of Santos FC in 1965 which was not a 
      tournament but is (wrongly) counted as a Caracas tournament 
      in some Brazilian sources.

About this document

Thanks to Andrés Acosta (heyderblue@hotmail.com), Miguel Alvim Gonzalez (miguelgonzalez@openlink.com.br), Carles Lozano (ferrer@economistes.com), Paulo Martins (pirolito1@hotmail.com) and Carlos Pessoa (cpessoa@marlin.com.br) for additional information

Sources included: Wikipedia, Placar magazine, Jornal do Brasil newspaper (both from Brazil), ABC, El Mundo Deportivo newspapers (both from Spain), official sites of Bangu, Benfica, Cruzeiro, Real Madrid, Santos, São Paulo and Sporting.

Prepared and maintained by Karel Stokkermans and Pedro Varanda for the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation

Authors: Karel Stokkermans and Pedro Varanda
Last updated: 5 Jul 2018

(C) Copyright Karel Stokkermans, Pedro Varanda and RSSSF 2003/18
You are free to copy this document in whole or part provided that proper acknowledgement is given to the authors. All rights reserved.