Godoy Cruz was born as an institution in 1921. It all started when a group of friends gathered in the "Victoria Bar" (located opposite the departmental square at that time), decided to found a club, taking advantage of the boom at the time. Thus was born on 1 June 1921, the Club Sportivo Godoy Cruz with the novice presidency of Don Romero Garay. The club was officially founded on 21 June 1921 under the name "Sportivo Godoy Cruz", and changed to its current name on 25 April 1930 after the fusion with "Deportivo Bodega Antonio Tomba". In 1959, Godoy Cruz' stadium, the
Estadio Feliciano Gambarte, was constructed. The stadium is nicknamed
La Bodega (
Spanish for "wine cellar") and holds 21,000 people. Godoy Cruz played in the regional league for several years before reaching the national level. The club won the Mendoza first division championship in 1944, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1954, 1968, and also in 1989 and 1990 that qualified to play in the defunct
Torneo del Interior national-level tournament. Winning the Torneo del Interior in 1994, Godoy Cruz reached the
Primera B Nacional (Argentine second division) that year. After more than ten years in the second division, the club was finally promoted to the
Primera División in 2006, after winning the
2005–06 season of the Primera B Nacional, defeating
Nueva Chicago in the final. Twenty-year-old
Enzo Pérez scored the first goal by Godoy Cruz in the Argentine Primera, in a 1–1 draw with
Belgrano on 9 September 2006. At the end of the
2006–07 season, Godoy Cruz was relegated from the Primera after losing their promotion/relegation play-off with
Huracán. Their stay in the second division was short, as they earned automatic promotion to the first division after finishing runners-up to
San Martín de Tucumán during the
2007–08 season. Godoy Cruz under
Omar Asad's management during the
2010 Clausura can be considered as a turning point in the club's success in top-level competition, earning accolades from both fans and sport journalists alike. In that tournament, they achieved the best-ever point total (37) at the time, for a team indirectly affiliated to the
Argentine Football Association (meaning clubs under the administration of the
Consejo Federal (Federal Council) branch of AFA, which are teams outside
Buenos Aires,
Greater Buenos Aires,
Rosario and
Santa Fe). These results qualified them for the
2011 Copa Libertadores, their first appearance in this tournament. The club's
Superliga Argentina 2017/18 season, can be considered as the club's finest performance in Primera Division, finishing second place. After an erratic start to the season which lead to the sacking of
Lucas Bernardi and his Uruguayan replacement,
Mauricio Larriera, Godoy Cruz —placed midtable (twelfth after Matchday 12) in league standing at the time— improvised to begin the 2018 half of the season by promoting manager
Diego Dabove who had been coaching the reserve team since 2017. Dabove restructured the starting 11 into an efficient counter-attacking unit. Although the club rarely dominated possession statistics game after game, "El Tomba" amassed 56 points in 27 games played, with in-form striker
Santiago García —who converted 17 goals; earning him the
Top Goals Scored and
Best Forward awards— helping the team set their own club record of 6 consecutive wins during a late season push (Matchday 18 to 23) to keep eventual title winners
Boca Juniors unable to clinch the division title until the penultimate matchday. Perhaps in hindsight, Godoy Cruz's early season inconsistency and Matchday 24 draw away at
Banfield with a last-gasp 90'+3 goal-line save by Banfield defender
Adrián Sporle, were key factors in finishing only two points behind Boca's 58 points. ==South American Tournament Qualification==