Marinos Metropolis

Marinos Metropolis, also known as Marinos for short, is a professional Valladar football club based in Metropolis that plays in the Valladar Liga-1, the highest level of the Valladar football league system. Founded in 1960 as an amalgamation of several smaller clubs (including Alianza Oriente F.C., a club established by workers from the port city of Junín and whose representatives ended up choosing the name of the merged club) who saw in the merger their only chance to be actually competitive in the District of Metropolis state league, Marinos quickly became the main football club in the Spanish-speaking southern half of the City of Metropolis, superseeding the historic southern powerhouse Nacional from the nearby Obrero neighborhood, which at the time was starting a slow decline. The Marineros were the first team able to break the domination displayed by Metropolis Alligators in the state league with their 1965 championship, and went on to beat the Alligators to the championship five more times before the creation of the Super League. Marinos were a founding member of the Valladar Super League, and have competed in the top flight every season. They play their home matches at the Estadio Zachary Fortin, located in the Parque Rushmore neighborhood of the federal capital Metropolis and able to seat 50,304 people.

Up to the 64th Valladar Liga-1 season, Marinos are the fourth winningest club within Valladares with six league championships, eight Kings' Shields and three Canalave Crowns. Internationally, they also became the first and only Valladar club to achieve back-to-back titles in the UICA Champions’ Cup, winning both the 60th and 61st editions of the competition. In addition to these titles, Marinos also won the UICA Globe Cup once, the Cup Winners' Cup twice and the Rushmori Copa de Campeones once. Marinos have fierce rivalries with fellow Metropolis clubs Metropolis Alligators and Nacional, as well as with Slateport Bulls, Fontvielle Impact, and Deportivo Junín. The club's traditional kits are sky blue shirt and socks with black shorts, with orange and white being the first colour choice for alternate kits.

Stadium
Since the 52nd Valladar Liga-1 season, Marinos have hosted their home matches at Estadio Zachary Fortin, named after Quebecois club legend Zachary Fortin and built at the site of their former stadium Estadio Mario Ferreira in the Parque Rushmore neighborhood in southern Metropolis. Nicknamed "el Fortín" as a pun on the player's surname as well as the Spanish word for "small fort", the stadium played a big role in its opening season with the Marineros winning all their matches there on the way to their fifth Liga-1 title.

Prior to the opening of the EZF and since Estadio Mario Ferreira was deemed unsuitable for the club's needs and growing fanbase, Marinos used the Metropolis Dome and the City of Metropolis Stadium for their Super League and Liga-1 home matches, in both cases groundsharing with arch-rivals Metropolis Alligators and Nacional, respectively.

Supporters and rivalries
Traditionally, Marinos have attracted sympathies from Metropolis's Spanish-speaking middle and lower classes, which are mainly located in the southwestern zone of the city, in contrast to other teams of Hispanic origin such as Nacional, Atlético Nápoles or Danubio FC, which have thrived among the higher classes. However, Marinos's fanbase has grown all over Valladares given the team's recent success in both the domestic and international arenas, with groups of fans in the main cities of the country. The Marineros are also quite popular in Junín, given that their origins are somewhat linked to the city and they had the chance to thrive among the Juninese population before the appearance of Deportivo Junín in the footballing panorama.

On the rivalries field, the Derby Metropolitano against Metropolis Alligators nowadays represents the historic struggle between northern and southern Metropolis, the former being Anglophone and richer than the latter, mostly Hispanic and more popular. At the same time, Marinos have always had a heated derby with the other main representative from southern Metropolis, Nacional, with both representing neighboring boroughs (Parque Rushmore and Obrero, respectively) and sharing a similar social background. Meanwhile, Slateport Bulls, Deportivo Junín, and Fontvielle Impact have all become modern rivals: the Blue Derby against the Slateport side emerged during the first Super League season and consolidated in the early seasons of the league as both sides fought for prominence in the newly-formed league and went on to become the title-decider in the 63rd Liga-1 season, won by the Bulls, Deportivo Junín has been slowly undermining Marinos's fanbase and popularity in Junín, and with Fontvielle Impact being the other Valladar side with relative success on the international front, a rivalry has naturally originated around the matches between Celestes and Bleus.

Club honours

 * {{legend|gold|record}}

Notable players

 * See also: List of Marinos Metropolis players


 * Santiago Rosel
 * Othello Murcutt
 * Tamer Yilmaz
 * Chris Ashton
 * Gawain Warden


 * Zachary Fortin
 * Marcos Zelaya
 * Cristiano Karaji
 * Edwin Aguilar


 * Freddy Edwards
 * Franco Espinel
 * Aymeric Fortin
 * Lúcio


 * Pablo Núñez
 * Paulo Oliveira
 * Pablo Scotti
 * Markus Portsman