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:
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 AC Sparta Praha [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.
From 1958 to 1981 many tournaments were held in Caracas. These tournaments are generically called "Torneio 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:
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.
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: 4 Mar 2011
(C) Copyright Karel Stokkermans, Pedro Varanda and
RSSSF 2003/11
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