Chile, like most South American countries, had strangely organized championship – two championships really, but connected somewhat. Campeonato Apertura was similar to the format used in Argentina and Brazil: the league was subdivided into 4 groups, where the teams played two-legged round-robin tournament. The top two teams proceeded to next stage, run in standard cup format of direct elimination from quarterfinals to the final. But the winners hardly benefited – Apertura was not separate championship. Only bonus points were carried on to Campeonato Oficial: 2 points for the winner and 1 point for the losing finalist and semi-finalists. In the Second Division bonus points were also awarded to those winners who scored 4 or more goals in Campeonato Oficial. The winners of that championship, run like standard league, were the champions of the season. Two teams were directly relegated and promoted, but there was a promotion/relegation mini-league too – the 15th and the 16th from First Division and the 3rd and 4th from Second Division played in it. Lastly, there was a mini-league, deciding the second Chilean participant in Copa Libertadores: the teams finishing right behind the champion – from 2nd to 5th place – in Campeonato Oficial competed. Apertura counted for almost nothing, which is confusing: normally, only the final table of Campeonato Oficial is seen, so not many people know the whole complexity and wonder where extra points came from. Chilean football was busy affair taking the whole year and every club played lots of games – perhaps on the level of the English clubs and certainly much more than most European clubs. It was orderly championship and Chilean football was on ascent – may be the only one improving in South America , although the quality was still much lower than football in Brazil and Argentina. But it was a saner scene, compared to the financial chaos in Brazil and Argentina, and organizational chaos in Brazil.
Second Division – 20 teams participated in it, the last was doomed to relegation, and the top too getting direct promotion. Apertura did not matter – fighting for survival was concentrated in Campeonato Oficial. Intersetingly, one club did not play in Apertura – Deportes Iquique. Note the name. Why they did not play in the opening phase would be anybody’s guess. One other club should be mentioned – Rangers (Tacna). They had miserable first phase, finishing with 5 points – 6 less than the 2nd placed Union Calera. The top two in each of the 4 groups qualified for the ¼ finals, then the winners went to the ½ finals, and at the end Huachipato prevailed 1-0 over Ovalle at the final and won the Apertura. Huachipato won… and what exactly they won? 2 bonus points. Ovalle and the losing semi-finalists Arica and San Luis got 1 bonus point each. Not exactly meaningful advantage when 38 championship games laid ahead. Apertura perhaps was giving some idea who was in strong from this year, but such things are never certain – Rangers had weak Apertura, Independiente worse, Huachipato – strong, Iquique – none. So what? In Campeonato Oficial some stayed strong, some sunk , others improved, and still others were more or less the same. Predictions and expectations vs reality. And reality was Campeonato Oficial where promotion and relegation were.
Second Division does not attract attention and since Chilean clubs are not well known, the wisdom goes that the lower level must be entirely anonymous. Not so – there were clubs with great past and others fairly known – like Huachipato, the Chilean champion of 1974. Rangers (Tacna) was also a club normally playing in first division. Lesser known, yet known, clubs were also found in the league:
Deportes La Serena
Ovalle
Antofagasta
Clubs moving up and down – the ‘unsettled’ category, present in every country.
Most league members did not ring any bell – if they had better days, those were in distant past.
San Antonio Unido
Ferroviarios (Santiago)
Trasandino (Los Andes)
Iberia (Los Angeles)
And the rest were entirely unknown – that is, the typical second division clubs.
Colchagua (San Fernando) was one of those – clubs mostly happy to play at this level, which was high achievement for them.
A league like that is usually dominated by the clubs ‘in between’ – too strong for this league, but too weak for the best league. It was not exactly the case here, but still comes close. Five clubs were in close pursuit during Campeonato Oficial, four of which played often first division football. Two of them were carrying bonus point from Apertura – Arica and San Luis. Not only the bonus points helped no one, but not a single team managed to get extra point for scoring 4 or more goals this year. Three teams fought bitterly for survival at the bottom – Linares finished last with 24 points. Union San Felipe was lucky 19th with 25 and Curico Unido – 18th with 26 points. But Linares was also happy… the league was extended to 22 clubs for the next season and relegation was revoked. At the top, bad luck for San Luis (Quilota) – thanks to their bonus point from Apertura, they finished with 48 points – equal with Independiente (Cauguenes). Unfortunately for them, Independiente was the second best scoring team this year, which resulted in better goal-difference. San Luis finished 5th, Independiente got a chance for promotion.
With 49 points – thanks to their bonus point – Arica finished 3rd. They also scored the most goals in the league – 76.
Magallanes (Santiago) finished 2nd with 51 points and got direct promotion. Returning to top flight was excellent news for the fading club: may be a revival at last? Hope never dies.
The champions of the league managed a three-point lead at the end. 23 wins, 8 ties, and 7 losses. They were outscored by Arica and Independiente and Magallanes had better defensive record, but what mattered was points and 54 nobody else had. The champion was not a famous club like Magallanes, but no stranger to first division either – they played modest role in it before.
And here they are – the proud champions of Chilean second division 1979: Deportes Iquique. Going up. Note their sponsor – it seems Chile was the South American leader in introducing shirt adds. Even second division clubs had sponsors and in this case a famous one: Sony in second division? No more.
Indepenediente and San Luis still had to play promotion/relegation tournament and kept hopes going up too, but so far Deporteas Iquique and Magallanes were the happy winners.