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Technological modernization of the Club Nacional de Football website to address its double dependence on an obsolete architecture and external management, which hindered autonomy and real-time updates. DigitalProjex took on replicating the visual identity of the previous site and implemented a robust Drupal-based solution, equipping the club with its own intuitive content management system (CMS). The result was an autonomous, secure, and scalable web platform that allows the club to internally manage its content, events, and results with ease, optimizes performance and SEO, and ensures operational continuity through internal workflows and maintenance procedures.
About the project
The Club Nacional de Football, a highly prestigious sports institution, found itself at a critical technological crossroads. Its official website was based on an obsolete architecture, creating security vulnerabilities and poor performance. Even more alarming was its dependence on external institutions for maintenance and content updates. This dependence hindered agile, real-time management of vital information (news, results, calendar), negatively impacting the club’s operational autonomy. The main objective was to migrate to a modern, secure, and self-managing platform that preserves the brand identity and offers the scalability needed for future digital growth.
An Integrated CMS System based on Drupal To meet these rigorous requirements, DigitalProjex implemented a comprehensive digital solution using Drupal as the core of the Content Management System (CMS) and Information. The solution was designed so that the club could take full control by implementing five key modules:
- CMS and Institutional Content: Leveraged Drupal’s robustness to create a high-performance content hub, including an intuitive editor for segmented content (news, history, and multimedia with native YouTube integration) and centralized management of institutional information.
- Sports Management and Statistics: A specific module facilitates team roster management, calendar uploads, and instant updates of results and standings.
A Secure, Scalable, and Self-Managed Digital Ecosystem The new portal provided the Club Nacional de Football with its long-sought technological autonomy. The Drupal platform, with its flexible and secure architecture, guaranteed the performance and scalability required for an institution of its stature. By establishing workflows, review processes, and role controls, the club can manage all editorial processes internally, eliminating external dependency. Key technical outcomes include:
- Superior Performance: Ultra-fast loading speeds guaranteed (Core Web Vitals metrics), automatic image optimization, and CDN deployment.
- Digital Optimization: Out-of-the-box SEO capabilities, including Schema Markup generation for rich results, and total responsive adaptability on any device.
- Decision Making: Native and preconfigured integration with Google Analytics (GA4) and Tag Manager, enabling granular user behavior tracking and the effectiveness of monetization campaigns.
This project transformed the Club Nacional de Football’s website into a robust, self-managed digital ecosystem, demonstrating how Drupal can offer the complexity and stability needed for the large-scale operations of a professional sports organization.
Why Drupal was chosen
The development of the Club Nacional de Football platform on Drupal was justified by the need for a robust and flexible solution capable of managing a complex institutional and high-traffic ecosystem; the choice of Drupal was based on its Enterprise CMS capabilities and extensibility, which allowed for the synergistic integration with others platforms with the Content CMS (news and multimedia) into a unified platform, eliminating data fragmentation. Furthermore, Drupal's inherent scalability and SEO optimization, including its advanced caching system and structure optimized for Schema Markup and friendly URLs, ensured the high performance and visibility required for a high-traffic site, while its robust system of role control and workflows guaranteed the technological autonomy and security the club sought for internal content management.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
The selected modules and themes were chosen to provide a modern, flexible, and high-performance architecture aligned with the project’s goals.
Layout Builder, in conjunction with Gin LB and the Gin administration theme, provides an intuitive and highly customizable content editing experience, enabling editors to visually construct complex layouts without requiring technical assistance.
Paragraphs was used to give content creators structured flexibility and maintain design consistency across the site.
OpenID Connect enables secure user authentication and integration with external identity providers. In this project, it was used to connect with a custom Single Sign-On (SSO) solution developed by DigitalProjex, fully compliant with the OpenID protocol, providing seamless and secure access across multiple related systems.
Redis enhances site performance by providing efficient caching and faster response times.
S3FS allows media assets to be stored in Amazon S3, ensuring scalability and optimized delivery.
Migrate simplified the transition of legacy content into the new Drupal environment.
Better Exposed Filters and Webform enhance user interaction and data collection capabilities.
Lite YouTube and Tagify were incorporated to improve usability and optimize media and tag handling.
Devutils was used to streamline the configuration management process, simplifying environment synchronization and deployment workflows.
The custom CNF theme was developed to provide a unique, responsive, and accessible frontend fully aligned with the client’s branding and user experience requirements.
