He played the entirety of his career for CSD Municipal in the Guatemalan top division, and was a part of the squad that won the 1974 CONCACAF Champions' Cup.
Also a member of the Guatemala national team, he was a part of the squad that won the 1967 CONCACAF Championship, and also competed in two World Cup qualifying campaigns and at the 1968 Olympic Games.
López Oliva, a right back skilled both in defense and attack, and an outstanding free kick taker, made his professional debut in 1963 with Municipal, the only club he would represent.
He played for Municipal from 1963 to 1980, and along players such as Benjamín Monterroso, Julio César Anderson, and José Emilio Mitrovich, led the team on to win back-to-back league titles in 1973 and 1974, the 1974 Copa Fraternidad, and the CONCACAF Champions' Cup in 1974 going on to play the Copa Interamericana against CA Independiente of Argentina.
During Olympic qualification in 1968, after Guatemala had beaten Costa Rica 1–0 in the first leg of the series, López Oliva assisted in both goals[2] of a 2–3 loss in the second leg in San José, which tied both teams in points and goal difference; after extra time, the qualified team was decided by a coin toss, with Guatemala winning the right to participate at the 1968 Olympic Tournament in Mexico,[3] where López Oliva was a starter in all four of his team's matches and scored a goal in a 4–1 win against Thailand and another one in a 1–2 loss against Bulgaria.