Campeonato Metropolitano or, to use the full name, Campeonato de Primera Division Soberania Nacional. Perhaps the more important championship for the big clubs – it was a grueling classic league full of derbies and local rivalries. But this year there was the Malvinas war, the World Cup, and that on top of the ongoing political unrest, repression, economic hardship, still on top of seemingly eternal corruption, financial difficulties, and massive exodus of players. All combined… almost impossible to find the key factor, but Maradona moved to Barcelona, Kempes returned to Valencia, and the Italian clubs were offering big money for Argentine stars. River Plate without Kempes and especially Boca Juniors without Maradona were weakened and Campeonato Nacional showed a general weakness of all big clubs, but the second championship was a different matter and only River Plate and Boca Juniors underperformed. Relegation was the prime concern at the bottom of league – which brings a word on promotion. Two teams were going down, two teams were going up – one promotional spot was clear: the champions of Second Division. A play-off between lower placed teams decided the second spot – so far, so good. But the record of Campeonato Nacional shows one more promotion: Atletico Racing (Cordoba). However, they were eliminated at the quarter-finals and if the reason for such promotion would be that the qualifying to the semi-finals teams were all members of First Division, then the question why Atletico Racing still remains, for they were not the only lower-division club at the quarter-finals: San Martin (Tucuman) was also there and ended with slightly better record than Atletico Racing. But whatever the reason, the promotion of Atletico Racing concerned the 1982 championship, not the 1983 one – after playing Nacional, they joined Metropolitano – with them the league had 19 teams in 1982, as opposed to 18 in 1981. So, relegation and promotion for the next season concerned only the bottom of the league as ever.
After 36 rounds were played, the dust settled: Sarmiento (Junin) finished last with 24 points. More or less, expected relegation. The second relegation was decided by a play-off between the 17th, Union (Santa Fe) and the 18th , Quilmes. Both finished with 27 points – that most likely was the reason for the play-off. Union clinched 1-0 victory and survived.
Standing from left: Clide Díaz, Tocalli, Milozzi, Gáspari, Zárate, Oscar E. Gizzi.
First row: Lorea, Acevedo, Víctor L. Martínez, Converti, Oscar A. Gissi.
Interesting anomaly: Quilmes almost won Campeonato Nacional, nearly repeating their success only a few years back, but Metropolitano was not their cup of tea – they were relegated practically at the same time they won the other championship, managed to return immediately to first division and were relegated just as quickly. In a single year Quilmes was vice-champions and relegated – a rare moment of football history.
And it was also interesting to see how the champions of Nacional played in the second championship: nothing much…
Ferro Carril Oeste finished 9th with 37 points – pretty much as they usually performed. Finished above River Plate, though.
Let keep out Racing Club – its horror story was going on for 15 years already and there was no end. 16th place this year was just another sad chapter of it, but nothing surprising.
Argentinos Juniors was 12th. Maradona left them and they sunk immediately.
River Plate finished 10th – if Argentinos Juniors’ drop was well understood – really one-player team and without him there was nothing to keep them up, River Plate was a big collapse. They were on top just and year ago and Kempes was not the decisive factor. But suddenly they were.
Rosario Central ended 8th, which was another unusually weak performance, for they had strong previous years.
The opposite road took two teams – Atletico Racing (Cordoba), newcomers, playing top division thanks to good performance at Campeonato Nacional earlier in the year, finished 7th.
Nueva Chicago, just promoted from Second Division, finished 15th. Not really newcomers, but for them to merely survive among the best was a success.
At the top of the table were well known names, but let not make mistake: it was not like they played all that well.
Velez Sarsfield was 5th – but with 42 points they were not part of the race for the title at all. Standing from left: Cuciuffo, Jorge, Juan D. Cabrera, Pumpido, Moralejo, Daniel Killer.
First row: Bujedo, Lucero, Bianchi, Alonso, Ischia.
Not a great squad… Carlos Bianchi and Daniel Killer were the stars. Cuciuffo and Pumpido were promising, at best – their fame came a few years later. To a point, Velez Sarsfield is more than good example of the state of the Argentine clubs: plausible performance depended often on aging stars, returning form abroad – Carlos Bianchi was still good enough for domestic football and was the only well known name to finish among the best scorers of the season: 3rd with 13 goals (hawever, in Campeonato Nacional – out of top 5 scorers in Campeonato Metropolitano). Younger stars were no longer around…
Newell’s Old Boys – 4th with 44 points. Tata Martino was with them, but… Tata Martino is more famous today, as a coach, then he was at his playing days. Simon, Scoponi, may be Santamaria… not exactly superstar.
Boca Juniors ended 3rd with 48 points. Maradona left them for Barcelona and Boca Juniors immediately followed the fate of Argentinos Juniors – although, it was not exactly the same kind of team and finished higher. Higher, but the title was out of reach, therefore, the season was wasted.
Independiente was 2nd and actually fought for the title – but still lost it. Compared to the squad of the first half of the 1970s, this one was rather insignificant.
Estudiantes (La Plata) won the championship with 21 wins, 12 ties, and 3 losses, 50-18 goal-difference. Six clubs outscored them, but none came even close to their defensive record. Of the bog clubs, they were the only one to play strong and it was great for them, for Estudiantes rather faded away in the 1970s. Yet, a look at the squad tells the story of this season: Trobbiani surely and Brown eventually were the big names.
Another version of the starters shows Alejando Sabella too, but he left to play in England. That was the situation of the Argentine clubs at that time: the best were going to play in Europe, impoverishing already rather thin squads. Success seemingly depended on momentary form – whichever team managed to keep a tight, disciplined, and even outdated defensively oriented group of 13-15 players would likely succeed. Estudiantes was hardly a flashy or memorable team, so imagine the others. Consider this: Maradona left Boca Juniors and a team like Estudiantes had no trouble to finish well above Boca. But whatever the general musings, Estudiantes did well and brought joy to their fans. Nothing more important than a title.