Month: September 2020

Uruguay. Almost ‘normal’ season – Nacional and Penarol dominated. Yet, there was change, hardly noticeable, but a change. It happened in the Second Division. Second Division was still 10-team league, smaller than First Division. Six teams battled for promotion and 4 were outsiders, too weak for more than trying to avoid relegation. Nine of the ten teams were from Montevideo. Cerrito finished last with 9 points.

Racing was slightly better – 9^th with 11 points. They also scored one goal more than Cerrito did: 8. Just above them finished the team representing change:

Huracan (Paso de la Arenas) ended 8^th with 13 points. The only provincial club in the top two divisions. It was not the first provincial playing in the Second Division, but it looked like they were going to stay there, at least for a while, unlikely the few such clubs before. They also shared the record of goals scored with Rentistas – 25. High scorers, but equally disastrous in defense, allowing 25 goals as well, the worst record in the league. Yet, it was perhaps the first sign of change – the total monopoly of Montevideo cracked, if only a little bit.

Italiano ended 7^th with 13 points and ahead of Huracan because of more wins. With them, the group of outsiders ended. Liverpool was 6^th with 20 points, Oriental – 5^th with 21,

Villa Teresa – 4^th with 21,

Sud America – 3^rd with 23. Standing from left: Nelson Peña, Alejandro Larrea, Alejandro Cano, Pablo Fuentes, Walter Alvarez, Miguel González.
Agachados: Aníbal Miqueiro, Carlos Cordero, Luis Heimen, William Noble, Carlos Larrañaga.

Rentistas – 2^nd with 24, and

Miramar Misiones won the championship with 25 points from 9 wins, 7 ties, 2 losses, 23-11 goal-difference. Happily promoted to top flight for the next season.

First Division provided the usual drama of the eternal battle between Nacional and Penarol, no other team coming close to the leaders.

River Plate finished last with 16 points.

Fenix ended 12^th with 18 points, but were relegated, having the worst accumulated record in the last 3 years. They had weird season anyway: won only twice, but tied 14 of total 24 matches.

Rampla Juniors – 11^th with 19 points. Standing from left: Ruben Baecque, Roberto Silva, Andres Ortuno, Javier Baldriz, Carlos Barcos, Manuel Anzorena. Front row: Jorge Perazza, Hector Codevilla, Fernando Barboza, Carlos Alvarez, Jorge Torres.

Cerro – 10^th with 20 points. Standing from left: Jorge Ramas, Ramón Castro, Washington Aires, Carlos Martínez, Juan J. Rodríguez, Carlos De León. Crouching: Mario Vázquez, Carlos Berrueta, Héctor Morán, Danilo Baltierra, Enrique Escobal. Danubio – 9^th with 22 points.

Defensor Sporting – 8^th with 22 points.

Huracan Buceo – 7^th with 24 points.

Progreso – 6^th with 24 points. However, Progreso, most likely thanks to accumulated 3-year record, was to play Copa Libertadores play-off against the loser of the Championship play-off.

Bella Vista – 5^th with 24 points.

Wanderers – 4^th with 26 points.

Central Espanol – 3^rd with 28 points. Standing from left: Daniel Sánchez, Alain Sulbrig, Martin Lasarte, César Pereira, Victor de los Santos, Gustavo Aloy. 
Crouching: Jorge Yañez, Jose I. Villarreal, Miguel Caillava, Daniel Vicente Viera, Alfredo Nocetti.

Penarol lost to Nacional by a point, finishing with 34 points. But there was still Championship play-off to be played, so there was hope.

Nacional was first at the end of the regular season with 35 points. 13 wins, 9 ties, 2 losses, 33-15 goal-difference. Their record was almost identical to Penarol’s, the only differences were that Penarol had 8 ties, 3 losses, and received 17 goals. It was fair to have championship play-off under the circumstances, but at the end justice prevailed: Nacional had marginally better season than Penarol, so it was just they won the play-off and the title. Standing from left: Santiago Ostolaza, Julio Cesar ‘Gladiador’ Ribas, Gualberto Velichco, Faral, Juan Jacinto Rodriguez. Front: Mauricio Silvera, Rafael Villazan, Fernando Barboza, Juan Ramon, Pintos Saldana, Sergio Olivera.

Not a very impressive squad, especially when compared to some of the great sides Nacional had in the past, but champions, as most of their predecessors. 25^th title for the club, but in the 1980s the club had little success, so the victory was mostly a relief. Prevailing over Penarol was always sweet, but the squad was clearly not very strong and promising. And there was nothing to be done to remedy the situation: money was short and Uruguayan players went abroad as soon as they could, so even Nacional had depleted pool of players to chose from: not even second-rate players stayed in the country . Foreigners of good quality were also hard to find. Money…

Paraguay. Small – as ever – league, so complicated championship going through 4 stages. One relegated, one promoted.

General Caballero (Zeballos Cué) won Second Division and went up.

The structure of the top league championship was as follows: three similar stages at first – one-leg round-robin tournaments. The top 2 teams at each stage got bonus points to carry over to the final stage. In case two teams finished with equal points, a play-off was played to decide the stage winner. After that an aggregate table was made, combining the records of the initial stages and the top 6 teams in it went to the final stage. As for relegation, it seemed to be some aggregate record of few previous championship, for there was no other visible indication – Sport Colombia (Fernando de la Mora) was relegated, but it was last only in the first stage and 8^th in the aggregate table. Down they went, though.

On top, the season progressed this way: Sol de America and Guarani finished with 12 points each in the first stage and Guarani won the play-off on penalty shoot-out.

Libertad won the second stage, followed by Olimpia.

Sol de America won the third stage, followed by Atletico Colegiales.

The top 6 in the aggregate table qualified to the final: Sol de America, Atletico Colegiales, Guarani, Cerro Porteno, Libertad, Olimpia. Last in this table was Sportivo San Lorenzo (San Lorenzo), Nacional (Asuncion) – 9^th, Sport Colombia – 8^th, and Sportivo Luqueno (Luque) – 7^th. The season for those 4 was over.

Bonus points, according to performance in every stage: Sol de America – 3, Guarani and Libertad – 2, Atletico Colegiales and Olimpia -1. Cerro Porteno entered the final tournament without any bomus points and at the end that was the decisive factor. The teams played ones again the rest, as in every previous stage and the final table was the end of the championship. Olimpia and Cerro Porteno were the best at the final, but the strategy did not work…

Atletico Colegiales (4 Mojores) ended last with 4 points (3+1), Guarani (Asuncion) – 5^th with 5 (3+2),

Libertad (Asuncion) – 4^th with 6 points (4+2)

 

Cerro Porteno (Asuncion) – 3^rd with 7 points (7+0). Standing from left: Figueredo, Nunes, Jacquet, Zabala, Zinnavoda, Fernandez. First row: Perez, Mercado, Morel, Olmedo, Gamarra. Olimpia (Asuncion) – 2^nd with 8 points (7+1). To the surprise of their foes and to the delight of their supporters, Sol de America finished on top with 9 points. Their final campaign was not all that strong – 2 wins, 2 ties, and 1 loss – but they scored most goals. Of course, the winners benefited from their bonus points – indeed, the bonus points placed them on top of the final table, but it was well deserved, for Sol de America had splendid season – their lowest place in the earlier stages was 7^th in the second stage, but they ended 2^nd in the first stage and won the third stage. They were 1^st in the aggregate table with 13 wins, 8 ties, and 6 losses and no matter what happened at the final stage, the usual leaders – Olimpia and Cerro Porteno – had weak season, coming to life only at the very end: in the aggregate table Cerro Porteno was 4^th and Olimpia – 6^th. It was wonderful victory of the underdog, of course – Sol de America, founded 1909 in Barrio Obrero, Asuncion, never won anything in its already long history. They had to satisfied with success in other sports, but who would care for that when there was no football triumph. The club was always in the shadow of not only Olimpia and Cerro Porteno, but also Libertad, Guarani, and even Nacional. The win for the first time was just fantastic. Such a victory deserves one more photo of the winning team – no stars here, only striker Faustino Alonso and goalkeeper Jorge Battaglia went to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and they were not starters in the national team. Perhaps the big clubs used the World Cup as a kind of excuse for their failure, but there was nothing to diminish the success of Sol de America – they had so solid record this season.

First Division. Three relegated teams this year, but there were 2 obvious outsiders. Still, the battle for survival involved 7 teams. It was dramatic on top as well – two teams raced together to the very end goal-difference decided the winner.

Magallanes – terrible this year: 18^th with 18 points.

Audax Italiano, just as bad, ended 17^th with 19 points.

The third relegated team lost long lasting battle for survival on worse goal-difference: Union San Felipe took the dreaded 16^th place with 29 points.

Rangers survived: 15^th with 29 points. Everton was lucky as well – 14^th with 29 points.

Union Espanola – 13^th with 30 points.

Fernandez Vial – 12^th with 30 points.

Deportes Iquique – 11^th with 31 points.

San Luis – 10^th with 31 points. With them, the group concerned only with avoiding relegation ended.

Deportes Concepcion was 9^th, but 35 points – a much stronger team than those behind.

Universidad de Chile – 8^th with 35 points. Not very good season, may be better next year.

Naval – 7^th with 38 points. Standing from left: Jorge Rodríguez, Marcos Pacheco, Luis Valenzuela, Jaime Gaete, Nelson Figueroa, Edógimo Venegas. Crouching: Oscar Herrera, Juan Soto, Rubén Sánchez, Sergio Marchant, Cristian Yagman. Universidad Catolica – 6^th with 38 points.

Huachipato – 5^th with 40 points.

Cobresal – 4^th with 40 points. Rapidly establishing itself among the best.

Cobreloa – 3^rd with 44 points.

The battle for the title was decided either on goal-difference or on more wins – either way, Colo-Colo had the edge.

Palestino was strong and ambitious to the end, but lost the championship by a tiny fraction – they finished with 48 points, scored the most goal in the league – 63 – and lost only 4 games. But they won 1 match less than Colo-Colo and had dreadful defense – 42 goals. At the end, that put them second.

Minimal and lucky victory, but victory – Colo-Colo clinched the title: they had 19 wins and Palestino – 18, their goal-difference was +26 to Palestino’s +21. Barely enough, but enough. Second row from left: Jaime Pizarro, Luis Hormazábal, Emilio Fuentes, Fernando Astengo, Oscar Rojas, Roberto Rojas. Crouching: Hugo Rubio, Juan Gutiérrez, Osvaldo Gómez, Arturo Jáuregui, Raúl Ormeño. May be not the greatest squad the club had, but winners anyway and for Colo-Colo that is enough. If anything, Colo-Colo was very stable – never having longish unsuccessful run, always aiming at the title – and collected one more. Too bad Palestino did not win, but not so for Colo-Colo’s fans.