Argentina. The whole system was reorganized this season – first, it was no longer one-year season, but went to the familiar to Europeans season spread in two years: 1986-87. In the Southern hemisphere that meant spring – fall combination, using the summer as well, instead of fall-spring with winter and summer breaks. Second and more important: no more two separate championships, but only one in league format. First Division was practically renamed old Metropolitan First Division of 20 teams. Nacional disappeared, but the issue of inclusion of provincial clubs was settled with the new Primera B – Second Division of 22 teams. Seven of them came from former Primera B Metropolitana, 13 teams from the provincial leagues outside Metropolitan system, and 2 teams were relegated in the previous season from Metropolitan First Division. This affected many clubs from Greater Buenos Aires, which played in Metropolitan Second Division so far – now they went down to third level. Promotion/relegation between First and Second Division were quite clear, but not so at the lower level: three teams were going down from the new Primera B – if at least one was from Greater Buenos Aires, it was going to play in the Third Division of that system. The winner of Third Division was getting promotion to Primera B. If provincial club was relegated from Primera B, it was going down to the league of the province it belonged to. Looks like champions of provincial league played for 1 promotion to Primera B and 2 teams were promoted from Greater Buenos Aires system. It was still complicated – only the old Metropolitan system (which, however, included teams from Rosario and Santa Fe too – all those belonging to AFA – but it was not so clear when one goes further down the league system: since a good number of clubs from Greater Buenos Aires belonged to the Province of Buenos Aires, the boundary was difficult to establish. Santa Fe and Colon belonged to entirely different provinces and most likely if, say, Rosario Central suffered relegation to third level, it had to leave the championship of Greater Buenos Aires and play in the third-level league of its own province.) Relegation rules continued to be peculiar and unchanged: the strange table, classifying teams on 3-year average remained and it determined relegation, but even that was not always giving clear record, so there were quite long relegation play-offs between teams with equal average. Promotion was complicated as well – only one team was directly promoted and the second promotional spot was decided by play-offs. Play-offs between which teams, though? One can justify play-offs between 4 teams, finishing with equal points in the very first season of Primera B, but 8 teams participated in the promotion play-offs. Was it to be that in the future? Unclear. And promotion from third level to the second? The champion of Metropolitan Primera B going up was simple enough, but who and why would be promoted from other provinces? The teams promoted at the end of 1986-87 were 2 from the Metropolitan Primera B and 1 from the rest of the country.
The new system practically cut off chances for ‘exotic’ clubs from distant parts of the country to have their 5 minutes of fame, rubbing shoulders with River Plate and Boca Juniors, as had been in the old Campeonato Nacional.
Bernardo O’Higgins (Rio Grande),
Talleres (Remedios de Escalada).
Club Mutual Deportivo Alem
Clubs like these above could not any longer entertain hopes for appearance on the highest stage – at most, they could hope for accidental brief appearance in Primera B. And even that was almost impossible, for there were bigger and stronger clubs in the same pot:
San Martin (Tucuman), for instance.
However, it was there rivals Atletico Tucuman winning promotion in 1986-87.
It was much clearer in the Metropolitan realm, where league system was established long time ago.
Teams like Muniz knew there place, labored hard to win their own level and eventually get promoted to the next – from Primera D to Primera C, as it was.
More frustrated were clubs playing second division football in the previous season and generally used to look up to top Argentine level, which now found themselves in the obscurity of third level. Teams like
Nueva Chicago.
All teams, who finished bellow 9th place in the previous season of Metropolitan Second Division were now third level clubs, but that frustrated hopes of even smaller clubs from Greater Buenos Aires, who had hopes if not going up, at least to maintain somewhat respectful position in the system. Clubs like
Colegiales,
Excursionistas, and many others.
It could have been damn unfair for clubs like Quilmes, where memories of winning Argentine title were still fresh – and now it was maddening to play third level football, so they had to climb back to visibility. Which actually Quilmes did – they earned promotion somehow. Winning the Third Division championship.
Almirante Brown finished 2nd in the same league and also climbed back to Second Division.
So, good luck to Quilmes, Almirante Brown, and Atletico Tucuman in the 1987-88 season of Primera B Nacional.