Octagonal Final. The real thing, for all purposes: the winner of this tournament was the champion of the year, the 2nd placed got the other Colombian lot in Copa Libertadores. Desire is one thing, ability and form – another. Effectively, two teams competed for the title, going head-to-head from start to finish. When all 14 rounds were played, the picture was quite close to what happened earlier in the year:
Union Magdalena was 8th with 11 points.
Atletico Nacional finished 7th, but was above Union only thanks on its bonus: 11.25 points. Withoput 1.25 bonus points, they would have been last. Practically, the only team really losing steam late in the year, when it was most important.
Atletico Bucaramanga – 6th with 13 points.
Atletico Junior – 5th with 14.25 points. Nothing to brag about – the final performance was quite weak.
Deportes Tolima – 4th with 14.25 points. It may appear that Tolima took it easy at Torneo Nacional, having already qualified to the final leg, but if so, the idea misfired and the team was no good for more than 4th place.
DIM – Deportivo Indpendiente Medellin – 3rd with 15 points. The highest placed team without bonus points, but not good enough for more than bronze this season – even if the others did not carry bonus points, DIM would have been 3rd.
Millonarios – 2nd with 18.25 points. Looking at their performance, they apparently aimed carefully to be at their best at the end of the season – nothing spectacular, yet strong, during Copa de la Paz, strong, but a bit less so than America, during Torneo Nacional, and perfect at Octagonal Final. In fact, they were best at this stage – 6 wins, 6 ties, 2 games lost, 16-8 goal-difference. America finished with the same record, but worse goal-difference. So, bonus points decided the championship. Millonarios, however, had the biggest star in its squad – the former Argentine national team player Jose Daniel Van Tuyne.
America (Cali) won, thanks to their bonus points – they had 6-6-2 record in the Final, of course, and slightly worse goal-difference than Millonarios: 15-9. But they employed different tactic and it worked better than the Millionarios’ – America was consistently strong during the whole year, winning every tournament so far. This gave them 2 bonus points and with them they finished with 20 final points, a good 1.75 more than their rivals. Standing from left: Luis Eduardo Reyes, Hugo “Pitillo” Valencia, Julio César Falcioni, Juan Penagos, Jorge Porras. Crouching: Juan Manuel Bataglia, Víctor Espinoza, Guillermo La Rosa, Willington Ortiz, César Cueto, Víctor Lugo.
Looking back, everything was simple – America was going through one of their strongest ever periods – this was their 3rd consecutive title. Well balanced and well oiled squad, with lost of experience playing together. Two Peruvian stars should be mentioned – Guillermo La Rossa and Cesar Cueto. By now, both slipped out of foreign, particularly European mind, but one only has to go back to the 1978 World Cup to recall them. Particularly the excellent midfielder Cueto. Unfortunately, such were the times – South America did not get much coverage and Colombian championship virtually none. So whoever played there was practically lost, but it was not fair – Colombia was perhaps the biggest importer outside Europe and not counting the Mickey Mouse NASL for years, going back to the 1950s, when professional football was established in the country. Big names were still going to play in Colombia, sometimes even preferring it to Europe and it was the only South American country regularly importing players from Europe. But nobody paid attention and and, ironically, Colombia became also a swamp for players like La Rosa and Cueto: once there, they were forgotten and had almost no chance for moving to Europe and back to fame. Well, it worked well for America – they had strong stars and winning titles. One after another.