The El Salvador national rugby union team (''Spanish: rugby union equipo nacional de El Salvador''), nicknamed Los Torogoces, represents

El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

. They had their first international tournament in 2011 in Costa Rica along the other teams from Central America, winning the Silver Cup.

History

El Salvador started playing matches against Guatemalan clubs in 2009, losing 3−85 against Xela and winning 37–11 against Santa Rosa. Consequently, a victory against Xela Rugby Club 17–0, after clinching the second place in the Guatemalan Championship the "Torogoces" prepare 2 teams to give battle in the upcoming championship, which is in this case to bring the 1st place. El Salvador's coaches are from France and Argentina. Even though rugby is such a young sport in this country, it is opening way within other popular sports. Recently, the

Salvadoran Rugby Association The Salvadoran Rugby Federation ( es, Federación Salvadoreña de Rugby) is the governing body for rugby in El Salvador. The Federation also controls the national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side ...

(''Federacion Salvadorena de Rugby'') was recognized as a federation from the local Olympic committee, making it an official recognized sport in El Salvador. El Salvador played their first international against

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

as part of the 2012 South American Rugby Championship "C". They recorded their first international win, during the 2014 ARC, over Costa Rica. They went on to defeat

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

, which secured their first major tournament victory.

Record

Overall

Tournaments

Leadership

;Coaches :Alvaro Gorostiza (Esp) :Juan Carlos Peréz (Esp) ;Board of Directors * Chairman: Daniel Ola * Vice chair: Nelson Bolaños * Treasurer: Diana Diaz * Secretary: Moisés Nóchez

Players

Current players

El Salvador's rugby union team has a mixture of local young athletes with the reinforcement of experienced foreign players. Torogoces now remains as El Salvador's national team, recognized by CONSUR as a member and will participate in south and Central American tournaments under that name. Rugby in this country has evolved and two clubs have been created: Cuscatlan Rugby Club and Santa Tecla Rugby Club, both still participating in the binational club league with Guatemala. Players from both teams will be selected by trainers and the Federacion Salvadorena de Rugby to be part of Torogoces for international tournaments. In September 2013, Cuscatlán Rugby Club became the first Salvadoran team to win the Bi-National League with Guatemala.

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20120218230153/http://torogoces.com/ Rugby union in El Salvador Central American national rugby union teams National sports teams of El Salvador {{ElSalvador-sport-stub