Football Journey

First Division. Nothing added, just straight league championship of 13 teams. All Montevideo clubs.
Progreso finished last 13 points. A real outsider, but in the relegation table they had better percentage and were not relegated.
Miramar Misiones was the last in the relegation table and went down. In the championship they finished 12th with 18 points. Standing from left: Cardozo, Javier Ortiz, Valdez, López, Julio Montiel, Mario Viera, Martínez, Walter Alvarez, Héctor Salvá
Middle row: Jorge Alvarez, Julio De Souza, Daniel Hernández, Aldo Azzinari, Luis Duarte, Danny García.
Front row: De Oliveira, Barboza, Carlos Laje, Rivas.
Bella Vista – 11th with 18 points.
River Plate – 10th with 20 points. Standing from left: Edgardo Arias, Alvaro Pérez, Jorge Da Silva, Gabriel Correa, Aníbal Arias, Jorge Luveras.
First row: Fabiano Pereyra, Alberto Botto, Daniel Fascioli, Juan R. Carrasco, Carlos Martínez.
Central Espanol – 9th with 21 points. Standing from left: Nelson Quevedo, ?, Pablo Fuentes, Alejandro Heguy, Fabián Tejera, Pablo Fernández.
Front row: Marcelo Fracchia, ?, Juan Mouro, Eduardo Rinaldi, ?.
Cerro – 8th with 21 points.
Nacional – formidable internationally, but at home… 7th with 22 points and negative goal-difference. One of the weakest ever domestic seasons of Nacional.
First row: Mauricio Silvera , Yubert Lemos , Ernesto Vargas , Juan Ramón Carrasco, Héctor Morán.
Wanderers – 6th with 24 points.
Liverpool – 5th with 25 points.

Huracan Buceo – 4th with 28 points.
Defensor Sporting – 3rd with 31 points.
Penarol – 2nd with 31 points. Better than Nacional, which was the only comfort, for they were not a title contender at all, but only fought for second position with Defensor Sporting and clinched it on better goal-difference.
Danubio dominated the championship and won it practically without a rival. 18 wins, 4 ties and only 2 lost games. 52-18 goal-difference and 40 points. Penarol and Defensor were 9 points behind! It was the first time Danubio won the Uruguayan title – great historic success, making the team instant legend for the club supporters. Not only that, but Danubio made another historic point: for the first time since1914 the champion was not Nacional or Penarol two years in a row. Perhaps the winners were not great stars individually; perhaps Uruguayan football as a whole was not at its best… but who would blame Danubio for such things after such dominant season?
What a great moment! Danubio became the 8th club winning the Uruaguayan title.
Danubio, named by immigrant Bulgarian woman, finally won a title – its curious beginning deserves one more photo of their great triumph.

Uruguay. Interesting season when looked at from a distance. First of all, the attempts of the country to break the monopoly of the capital was unsuccessful – only one provincial club played in the top 2 leagues and finished last in Second Division: Villa Teresa. Uruguayan football was still solid Montevideo matter, but the dominance of Nacional and Penarol was strongly and successfully challenged. Yet, perhaps the most interesting was the First Division final table – the team hopelessly last in it… well, shall we wait for the next season to reveal the real stunning event? It would not have been possible if Uruguay had ‘normal’ relegation rules, but since the rules were different better remind them: a separate relegation table was kept, where accumulated in few seasons records decided the unfortunate team going down. Newcomers usually suffered from that, but rules are rules.
Second Division. Traditionally, a tiny one – only 10 teams, so season was somewhat enlarged by having final promotion tournament after the end of the regular season between the top 4 teams. Even with such addition the season was till minimal – 6 teams had 18-games season and 4 played 21 games.
Villa Teresa ended last with 9 points, winning only one match. The only team outside Montevideo in the top two Uruguayan divisions.
Cerrito – 9th with 11 points.
Villa Espanola – 8th with 15 points.
Rampla Juniors – 7th with 15 points.
Italiano – 6th with 17 points.
Fenix – 5th with 18 points. Standing from left: González, Nelson Acosta, Ruben Labandeira, Miguel Messones, Raúl Acosta, Nelson Cedeira.
Crouching: Washington Carrato, Silva, Wolker, Heber Maurojorge, Peluffo.
For these teams the season ended. The top 4 went to the promotion tournament: Sud America – 4th with 23 points, Racing – 3rd with 24 points, El Tanque Sisley – 2nd with 24 points, and Rentistas – the winners of the regular season, beating El Tanque Sisley on goal-difference, because they finished with 24 points too. However, points from the regular season mattered – in the promotion tournament everybody carried their initial points and played one match against the other three teams.
Now El Tanque Sisley lost steam and finished last with total of 25 points.
Sud America ended 3rd with 25 points, but better goal-difference than El Tanque Sisley.
Racing tried their best, but ended 2nd with 28 points. Standing from left: Miguel Leone, Gustavo Ventre, Domingo Cáceres, Vladimir Naidenov, Fernando Rosa, Alejandro Botello.
First row: Néstor Viera, Fernando Vilar, Daniel Malceñido, Leonardo García, Juan Hatchondo.
Rentistas were best at the end – they won 2 games and tied 1 (Racing also won twice, but lost their third match) and that gave them a total of 29 points. Standing from left: ?,?, Andres Lopez, Luis Dagnino, Julio Garrido, ?, ?, ?.
First row: ?, Javier Nunez, Julio Franco, Jose Rey, Alberto Correa, Juan Acosta.
Rentistas (Montevideo) were the champions of Second Division and promoted to top flight – not for the first time, but still it was wonderful achievement of the modest club.

First Division. Simple, straight-forward championship – after playing normal league season everything was done, except for the lowly team going to promotion/relegation playoffs against the second-placed teams in the Second Division Zones. And that was the only mystery this year: seemingly, the 14th in the final table should have been the team going to promotion/relegation stage, but who knows why it was the 13th in the final table. Apart from that – the last 2 were directly relegated and the the 1st was the country champion. A big surprise this year, but not of the pleasant kind.

Universidad de Chile finished 15th with 26 points and became the second relegated team this year. U de Chile – who would believe it? It was easier to allow for very weak season by Palestino, yet, it happened. True, only worse goal-difference and that by a single goal, relegated them, but it was shocking season.
Union Espanola – barely survived with their 26 points. Just a goal better goal-difference placed them above Universidad de Chile. Lucky. Double lucky – they somehow escaped the risky promotion/relegation playoffs.
O’Higgins – 13th with 26 points. Coming ahead of U de Chile was still on better goal-difference, but it was not enough to place them above Union Espanola – the three teams with 26 points had pretty much the same goal-difference: -8 U de Chile and Union Espanola and O’Higgins -7 each. So, the final separation was due to either more goal scored (Union scored 34, O’Higgins 36), or more wins (Union had 9, O’Higgins 10). But… O’Higgins finished ahead of Union Espanola and should have been safely relieved – nothing like that: somehow, they were the team which to the promotion/relegation playoffs and luckily they won their games with the Second Division opponents and preserved their precarious place in the top league. Happy end.
Naval – 12th with 27 points. The fact of this season was that many clubs really battled only for survival – up to the 7-placed team, may be even higher. Naval escaped relegation by 1 point. If they earned 4 more points, they would have been either 6th or 7th. Such was this season.

Everton – 11th with 28 points.
Deportes Valdivia – 10th with 28 points.
Deportes Concepcion – 9th with 29 points.
Huachipato – 8th with 29 points.
Fernandez Vial – 7th with 30 points.
Colo-Colo – 6th with 31 points. Very weak season for them too, but at least they were not relegated like Universidad de Chile. 6th place does not look so terrible, but consider the points: only 5 more than the relegated rivals!
Very good season for Deportes La Serena – 5th with 32 points. Must have been from free pisco suplly by their sponsor…
Universidad Catolica – 4th with 33 points. They must have been quite happy, for usual stayed in the shadows of Colo-Colo and Universdiad de Chile. The photo, however, is suspect – very possibly from the first half of the 1990s, although the given year is 1988.
It may been the quirks of a strange season, but Deportes Iquique ended with bronze medals – 34 points was not much. But most teams finished with less and who can blame them for having more than the most, including the big names? Great year for the club and its supporters, even if Deportes was far behind the leaders.
Cobresal – getting stronger and stronger. 2nd with 37 points and the only team rivaling the winners. 10 years earlier nobody would have believed Cobresal would be a candidate for a title, for they were still an obscure young club in the lower leagues.
Cobreloa – champions after 17 wins, 6 ties, 7 losses, 47-27 goal-difference and 40 points. By now – established leaders. 4th title already. Provincials ruled – Cobreloa first, Cobresal – 2nd. Mining towns ruled, not the capital, which was in terrible shape at the moment.

Chile. Second Division – divided into 2 groups of 12 teams each. After the regular season the top 6 teams in each went to promotion tournament carrying their points records from the first phase. The winner was directly promoted and the second best in each group went to the last promotion/relegation tournament with one of the weakest teams from First Division – the winner was going to play top league football next year. The bottom 6 teams in the first phase played in the relegation tournament, also carrying their points and the last finisher was relegated. Relatively simple formula. Since all teams carried their points from the first stage to the second only the final group positions will be given here.
North Zone.
Relegation playoffs:
Hard to believe, but well known Audax Italiano was last and relegated further down – they finished with a total of 40 points. Actually, the team played well at the final stage, but could not compensate the handicap from the first stage. Techically, 12th at the end.
Union La Calera survived even with very weak last stage – 5th with 42 points. 11th.
Regional Atacama – 4th with 42 points. 10th.
Deportes Ovalle – 3rd and 9th with 43 points.
Cobreandino – 2nd and 8th with 43 points.
Deportes Antofagasta – 1st and 7th with 55 points.
Promotion playoffs.
Magallanes – 6th with 43 points.
San Luis de Quillota – 5th with 49 points.
Santiago Wanderers – 4th with 51 points.
Coquimbo Unido – 3rd with 55 points.
Deportes Arica – 2nd with 56 points and going to the final promotion/relegation tournament. They had very strong finish, for in the first phase they ended 4th with 35 points – but missed to place by a point.
Union San Felipe finished 1st with 57 points. They won the North Zone and were directly promoted to the top league. Well done!
South Zone.
Relegation playoffs:
Malleco Unido finished last with 33 points and was relegated – 6th and 12th.
Deportes Colchagua – 5th and 11th with 40 points.
Nublense – 4th and 10th with 41 points.
General Velasquaz – 3rd and 9th with 42 points.
Deportes Linares – 2nd and 8th with 43 points.
Deportes Puerto Montt – 1st and 7th with 50 points.
Promotion playoffs:
Curico Unido – 6th with 48 points.
Provincial Osorno – 5th with 48 points.
Iberia Biobio – 4th with 51 points.
Lota Schwager – 3rd with 55 points.
Deportes Temuco -2nd with 57 points and going to the last promotion/relegation tournament.
Rangers – champions with 68 points and promoted to First Division. Leading from start to finish, apparently supreme at the last stage, where they practically had no rival.
The Promotion/relegation final:
Deportes Temuco and Deportes Arica met O’Higgins from the top league and could prevail – they tied the match between themselves and promptly lost against O’Higgins. Thus, O’Higgins kept its place among the best.

Colombia. 15 teams in the First Division, no direct relegation or promotion. What happened bellow the top league was apparently of little importance. Typically complicated championship formula, going through 4 stages, but seemingly the main objective was to organize as long as possible season – for years England was thought the longest and toughest place to play the game with its 42 rounds of the championship plus other competitions, but the top clubs of Colombia had to play 50 games just for the championship. How many were really important was another matter – teams carried bonus points to the final stage, but how were they achieved? The first two stages seemingly had little relation to the last two stages – in the first, the Pentagonals, the league was divided into 3 groups of 5 teams which played among themselves. In the second stage, the Triangulars, the league was divided into 5 groups of 3 teams, also playing between themselves only. After the group rounds there was nothing more – only group winners. The third stage was familiar league format and every team played twice against the others, a total of 28 rounds. It was also the end of season for the bottom 7 teams in the third stage table – the top 8 went to the final stages. 6 teams got bonus points to carry to the final, coming from the previous 3 stages, but the criteria was unclear: seemingly, the group winners of the first stage and the top 3 teams in the third stage got bonus points, but not the group winners of the second stage – or at least not all of them. In any case Millonarios, America, Independiente Santa Fe, Atletico Nacional, Atletico Junior, and Deportivo Cali got bonus points from different stages and ranging from 1 to 0.25 points. For purpose of economy only the last two stages will be placed here. The final table of the third stage was as follows:
Union Magdalena – last with 12 points.
Once Caldas – 14th with 15 points.

Atletico Bucaramanga – 13th with 20 points.
Sporting Barranquilla – 12th with 21 points.
Deportivo Cali – 11th with 22 points. They got 0.25 bonus points, but good for nothing. Having Carlos Valderamma in the squad did not help either – this was the end of the season for them.
Deportes Tolima – 10th with 26 points.
Cucuta Deportivo – 9th with 27 points. Standing from left: Pedro Blanco, Miguel González Palacios, David Grueso, Alexander Churio, José Alfredo Turci, Francisco Castell.
Crouching: Luis Murillo, Oscar Duque, Felipe Nery Franco, Néstor Nacho Saavedra, Juán Bautista Sanclemente.
Hm… they were 9th, yet qualified to the final stage. Why?
Deportivo Pereira – 8th with 30 points.
Independiente Medellin – or Deportivo Independiente, or most often DIM – 7th with 30 points. Standing from left: Sergio Díaz (Arg), José Luis García, Oscar Wirth (Chi), Héctor Cortina, Carlos Álvarez, Diego Osorio.
Crouching: Carlos “panelo” Valencia, Juan Carlos Letelier (Chi), William Nigth, Huberto “beto” Sierra, Gabriel Jaime “barrabás” Gómez.
A second ‘hmm’… they did not go to the final. Why?
Deportes Quidio – 6th with 31 points.
America – 5th with 31 points.
Atletico Junior – 4th with 33 points.
Atletico Nacional – 3rd with 33 points.
Independiente Santa Fe – 2nd with 41 points.

Millonarios – 1st with 42 points. 19 wins,4 ties, 5 losses, 49-21. Millonarios also won its group in the first stage, but finished 2nd in the second stage group. Nevertheless, they were steadily strong so far and got 1.5 bonus points as a result.
The final stage was a tough battle between Atletico Nacional and Millonarios, which was resolved only by goal difference. Both teams ended with 10 wins, 3 ties, and single lost match and had 1.5 bonus points. Millonarios had better goal-difference – 32-10 – to Atletico Nacional’s 23-5.
Cucuta Deportivo was last in the final stage with 4 points. Standing from left: Luis Murillo, Miguel González Palacios, Alexander Churio, Pedro Nel Barbosa, José Alfredo Turci.
First row: Danilo Robledo, Winston Girón, Nestor Saavedra, Juan Bautista Sanclemente, Francisco Castell.
Deportes Quindio – 7th with 6 points. Standing from left: Norberto “chomo” Cadavid, Carlos Enrique Prono (arg), Luis NorbertoGil, Edgar Téllez, Jairo “plástico” Torres, Norberto Peluffo.
First row: Augusto Vargas Cortés, Carlos Peláez, Henry Otero, Luis Erramuspe, Gilmar Aponzá.
Deportivo Pereira – or Deportes Pereira – 6th with 7 points.

Atletico Junior – 5th with 14.25 points.

Independiente Santa Fe – 4th with17.75 points.
America – 3rd with 18.75 points.
Atletico Nacional – 2nd with 24.50 points.
Millonarios – 1st with 24.50 points. Lucky win, one may argue, but they played well enough and had very tough rival. Second consecutive title and 13th altogether. Millonarios remained the most successful club in Colombia. Curiously, as good as this vintage was, the most famous Colombian stars – Valderamma and Hiquita – did not play in it by names only America still had stronger squad on paper. Somehow Millonarios did not have the greatest stars, either domestic or foreign, yet, they were the best team two years in a row.

Paraguay. Stretched out championship – the best teams played 40 games to decide the champion – but the rules were simple and clear.
CA Tembetary – or Atletico Tembetary, or just Tembetary – won the Second Division championship and got promoted.
The First Division was played in 4 stages, but always in the standard league format – the teams played once against the rest of the league in each stage. The top three teams in every stage got bonus points to carry to the final 8-team stage: the stage champion – 2.5 points, the second – 1.5 points, and the third – 0.5 point. The combined table of the initial three staged showed the top 8 going to the final stage and the last was relegated. This season Nacional (Asuncion) was the weakest and went down. Three other teams did not make the final stage: General Caballero, San Lorenzo, and
Guarani.
Stage by stage, there was really only one surprise:
Sol de America won the opening stage – they performed great: 6 wins, 4 ties, 1 lot game and 14-3 goal-difference. But they were last in the second stage with exactly reversed record: won just 1 match, tied 4, lost 6. 9-17 goal-difference. Then they back on top in third stage, ending 2nd only on worse goal-difference – won 7 games, tied 3, lost 1, 13-6. Weird ups and downs, but playing at the final stage was secured and with 4 bonus points at that.
Olimpia was different: they started sluggishly – 7th in the opening stage, but after that won the next two stages and went to the final stage with 5 bonus points.
Cerro Porteno did not won any stage, but had steady performance: 2nd in the opening stage, 3rd in second stage, 3rd in third stage. That gave them 2.5 bonus points.

Libertad got 1.5 bonus points for finishing 2nd in the second stage. But in the other two stages they mid-table team, finishing both times 6th.
Sportivo Luqueno was the last team getting bonus points – they were 3rd in the opening stage and got 0.5 point. Like Sol de America, they flopped in the second stage – 10th – but came back in the third stage finishing 4th.
The last 4 teams reached the final stage on combined points, but the title was pretty much out of their grasp because of the significant advantage bonus points gave the top clubs.
Colegiales ended last in the final stage with 4 points.
Sportivo Luqueno – 7th with 5.5 points.
River Plate – 6th with 7 points.
Sport Colombia – 5th with 7 points.
One should have expected Cerro Porteno to be playing for the title after such steady performance so far, but more likely they spent their efforts earlier – 4th with 9.5 points.
Libertad ended 3rd with 9.5 points.
Sol de America finished 2nd with 11 points. Great for a club hardly aver among the best, but… they were not a title contender at this point and if not for their bonus points would not been 2nd. They won only 1 match in the final stage. True, lost only once too, the rest was 5 ties. They scored the least goals at this stage – just 3 and finished with negative goal-difference 3-4. Interestingly, the best scorers at this stage were those having nothing to do with winning the title: Libertad, Cerro Porteno and Colegiales scored 11 goals each and River Plate – 10.
Well, familiar champion at the end – Olimpia (Asuncion). They were just unbeatable at the end: 4 wins, 3 ties, 9-3 goal-difference. Even without the bonus points the title was theirs. In any case, they deserved to win – started carefully, but after the first stage they were first all the way. Coming with 5 bonus points to the final stage helped demoralizing the opposition, of course, but can you blame a strong team for been strong? There was time a few years before that Olimpia seemed like making big mistake for keeping aging team, but now the rebuilding was pretty much over and danger was successfully avoided. Still… Almeida and Guasch appeared to be eternal. Anyway, one more title for Olimpia.

Liguilla Final. Unless a final play-off between the winners of the first and second tournaments was played, that was the championship final. Sporting Cristal came with 2 bonus points and Alianza Atletico with 1 bonus point from the previous qualification stage. The other 4 teams – 3 more from the ‘higher’ previous tournament and 1 qualified as winner of Toreno Descentralizado ‘B’ – started here from scratch.
Alianza (Lima) ended last with 3 points without winning a single match. Standing from left: Wilmar Valencia, César Espino, Vinces, Juan Reynoso, Letelier, Roberto Rojas.
Crouching: José Velásquez, Pinto, Teófilo Cubillas, Eugenio La Rosa, Francisco Huertas.
If this really is a photo of 1988, it shows the dire straits Alianza was in: veterans had to be called after the airplane crash killing the regulars. Cubillas, Velazquez and La Rosa were too old by now to do the job.
Union Huaral – 5th with 4 points.
Octavio Espinosa – 4th with 5 points.
Alianza Atletico (Sullana) – 3rd with 6 points (one of then – bonus). Standing from left: Enrique Garcia, Guillermo Lavalle, Pedro Sanjinez, Fredy Berlanga, Johano Bermudez, Pedro Sandoval.
First row: Ramon Anchisi, Jose “pata de rana” Zapata, Eduardo Ortiz, Jorge Castillo, Samuel Chamochumbi.
Universitario – 2nd with 7 points. 2 wins, 3 ties, 0 losses, 8-3.
Sporting Cristal – 1st with 8 points. 2 wins, 2 ties, 1 lost match, 3-2 goal-difference. Was it not for the 2 bonus points carried from the previous tournament, they would have been behind Univesitario.
This is picture not even from Peru, but from the Marlboro Cup, in which Sporting Cristal participated in USA. Anyhow, that was the team also winning the Peruvian championship: standing from left: Pedro Olivares, Segundo Cruz, Martín Ochandarte, José Fernández, Percy Olivares, Jesús Purizaga.
Crouching: César Loyola, César Cueto, Luis Rehder, Víctor Hurtado, Francesco Manassero.
Percy Olivares and Cesar Cueto are the big names here, although by now long in the tooth. But good enough to win a title, even in not very convincing manner. Yet, it did not matter – Sporting Cristal (Lima) won the title – their 9th.

Peru. Went Brazilian way already – instead of somewhat normal league system a massive complicated championship was in place. 37 teams of the whole country participated in it, regionally divided. Some vague rules of relegation existed. Some vague rules for qualification also existed – based on performance in the regional leagues, it appeared. The outcome was somewhat weird – some successful clubs from the Lima system were unable to play in the national championship.
Defensor (Lima) was one of those – Second Division champions this year, but what Second Division? No national one existed, so it must have been Lima’s Second Division. If so, was there First Division of Lima, or regional leagues were automatically considered second level? And were such winners getting promotion? And what was the benefit of having clubs like Defensor out of the national championship, but having bulk of obscure teams in it? No wonder Peruvian football lost its edge in the 1980s.
To describe the national championship in full would be tedious at best. First Torneo Regional was played – the country was divided geographically into 4 regional groups and the Metropolitan Group was further divided into 2 subgroups. The best in each group went to the next stage – Liguilla Regional and the rest – the Liguilla Regional B, which was important on two accounts: the winner of it still went to final stage and at bottom – relegation. The Metropolitan Group had it a bit different: the last of the two subgroups went to relegation play-off between themselves. The group winners contested the Metropolitan Group title. To what all that amounted is obscure: second stage followed, in which all starting team still played again. As for the winner of the first stage… looks like they were going to grand final between winners of first and second stage, yet there is no record of such game played.
Universitario (Lima) won the Regional championship final Liquilla. Standing from left: Leo Rojas, José del Solar, Pedro Requena, José Antonio Trece, José Carranza, César Chávez.
First row: Juvenal Briceño, Jesús Torrealva, Eduardo Rey Muñoz, Fidel Suárez, Alfonso Yáñez.
Followed Torneo Descentralizado ‘B’. Again, the same geographically divided groups, which winners went to the Final Group and its own winner – to the final Liguilla. But 12 teams, better than the others for some reason, went to stage on their own – the top 5 qualified to the final Liguilla. The last to play in it was the winner of Torneo Descentralizado ‘B’. Go figure… The top two teams among the best got 2 bonus points each to carry to the final Liguilla.
May be it is best not to try understanding rules and proceedings. Guardia Republicana (Lima) and
Internazionale (San Borja) finished last in the subgroups of Metropolitan Group in the first stage. They were supposed to play relegation play-off and the loser to go down somewhere. Internazionale repeated their poor play in the Torneo Descentralizado ‘B’ and were last again, but Guardia Republicana finished 2nd this time, missing qualification to the final stage on obscure rule: they finished not only with the same points (14), but with the same goal-difference (+5) as Alianza (Lima). The criteria would have been either more wins or head-to-head results, but Guardia Republicana ended 2nd and thus the opportunity to make a big joke of the whole championship was missed: if Guardia Republicana went ahead and won the title they would have been perhaps the only club in the world ever to both champions and relegated in the same season.
Alianza reached the final stage with difficulty, but they had to be excused – the whole team died in airplane crash in the late 1987. Such a tragic event shook the club to the core. Alianza still managed to go ahead – they won the final group of Torneo Descentralizado ‘B’ against the winners of other regional groups and went to the final tournament of the season.

Deportivo Canana (Group North) finished 2nd.
Alfonso Ugarte (Group South) was 3rd. Standing from left: Salguero, “Camote” Vásquez, “Cacique” Bustamante, Rubén Deleva, Toledo, Ramos.
First row: Calderón,  Vargas, Avendaño, Genaro Neyra, Romero.
Defensor ANDA (Group Central) was 4th.
So, just for the record – the list of teams which ended the monstrous championship early: Metropolitan Group:
Subgroup A:
San Agustin
AELU
CNI and Guardia Repiblicana.
Subgroup B:
Deportivo Municipal
Juventud La Joya
and Internazionale.
Group North:
UTC, Carlos A. Manucci,
Atletico Grau,
Libertad,
Juan Aurich,
15 de Septiembre and Hungaritos Agustinos.
Group Central:
Deportivo Junin, Mina San Vicente, Union Minas, Leon de Huanuco, ADT,
Deportivo Pucallpa,
and Alipio Ponce.
Group South:
Cienciano, Melgar, Coronel Bolognesi,
Deportivo Tintaya,
Diablos Rojos, Huracan, and
Alianza Naval (Mollendo).

Ecuador. When speaking of 1988 championship, one has to keep in mind the 1989 season, when the top league was reduced to 12 teams. Seemingly, the decision for reduction was made either late in the 1988 season or after the end of it, for at first everything was normal: the top league championship was 2-phased as usual and the last in the opening phase was relegated. The winner of second level was naturally promoted. Aurora was last and relegated at the end of opening stage, still maintained in the records.
Delfin (Manta) won the second level – but was not promoted!
Not only Delfin was not in the top league the next season, but 5 other teams went down. The criteria is not clear, for their relegation was not by positions – very likely financial criteria or stadium requirements were used for the degrading of teams. None of the top 8 was affected, but those bellow: River Plate, Deportivo Quevedo, Esmeraldas Petrolero, Juventus, and Universidad Catolica.
Apart from that, the season went into its usual motions: the first phase was standard league formula, so every team played 34 games. The top 8 qualified to the second phase and the top 2 carried 1 bonus point to it.

America (Quito) was last with 21 points and relegated by the usual rules.
River Plate (Riobamba) – 17th with 25 points. Originally safe, but eventually relegated.
LDU (Portoviejo) – 16th with 27 points. Remained.
Juventus (Esmeraldas) – 15th with 27 points. Relegated.
Deportivo Quevedo (Quevedo) – 14th with 28 points. Relegated.
Audaz Octubrino (Machala) – 13th with 31 points. Remained.
Esmeraldas Petrolero (Esmeraldas) – 12th with 32 points. Relegated.
Deportivo Cuenca (Cuenca) – 11th with 33 points. Remained.
Aucas (Quito) 10th with 34 points. Remained.
Tecnico Univeristario (Ambato) – 9th with 34 points. Remained.
The upper 8 qualified to the next stage: El Nacional – 8th with 35 points, Filanbanco – 7th with 36 points, Universidad Catolica – 6th with 36 points, Deportivo Quito – 5th with 39 points, Barcelona – 4th with 40 points, Macara – 3rd with 41 points, Emelec – 2nd with 44 points.
LDU (Quito) won the first stage with 49 points – 20 wins, 9 ties, 5 losses, 64-36. Yet, the confident victory meant next to nothing: they earned 1 bonus point to carry to the next stage, the same as Emelec, which was left 5 points behind.
The Second stage had the top 8 divided into two groups of 4 and the winners going to the championship final.
Group 1:
Filanbanco (Milagro) – last with 3 points.
Macara (Ambato) – 3rd with 6 points.
LDU (Quito) – 2nd with 8 points (1 carried from first stage bonus point). 3 wins, 1 tie, 2 losses, 10-11.
Deportivo Quito – 1st with 8 points. Bested LDU on goal-difference: 2 wins, 4 ties, 0 losses 8-4.
Group 2:
Universidad Catolica (Quito) – last with 3 points. They were relegated at the end of the season – the highest placed team to suffer from the reduction of the league.
El Nacional (Quito) – 3rd with 6 points.
Barcelona (Guayaquil) – 2nd with 7 points.
Emelec – 1st with 9 points. 2 wins, 4 ties, 0 losses, 7-4 (plus 1 bonus point from the opening stage).
A Quito final: Emelec vs Deportivo. Emelec was stronger than their rivals during the season and did not lose focus at the final – they won the first leg 3-0 and kept a 1-1 tie in the second.
Deportivo Quito made a brave effort, but their opponents were classier.
Emelec (Quito) won confidently – they made the best of the championship formula, apparently saving strength in the grueling first phase and progressively increasing their form, reaching the peak when really mattered. It was sweet and important victory – their 6th title, but also first since 1979. Almost 10 years of waiting ended.

Bolivia. 13 teams played in the championship, but the league was going to be reduced to 12, so one team was relegated and none promoted. As usual, two-phased season and the title was contested between the winners of first and second stage. The opening stage – standard league format. The winner going to the championship final and the last – relegated. Last was Aurora (Cochabamba) with 10 points. Very weak – they finished 6 points behind the 12th.
Universitario (Sucre) was 12th this year with 16 points.
Ciclon (Tarija) – 11th with 19 points.
San Jose (Oruro) – 10th with 20 points.
Real (Santa Cruz) – 9th with 21 points.
Always Ready (La Paz) – 8th with 25 points. That was the end of the season for those clubs.
The top 7 qualified to the second stage – the number is strange, but that was that and Always Ready may have been victimized: they had the same points as the 7th placed. Why 7 and not 8 teams? Never mind. Destroyers – 7th with 25, Litoral – 6th with 26, Blooming – 5th with 26, Oriente Petrolero – 5th with 29, Jorge Wilstermann – 4th with 29, The Strongest – 2nd with 31 points qualified.
Bolivar won the first stage with 35 points – 15 wins, 5 ties, 4 losses, 52-22. Now it was a matter of waiting for the final and keeping form – the second stage was not important anymore.
In the second stage the teams were divided into 2 groups at first and top 2 in each proceeded to the semifinals.
Group A:

Jorge Wilstermann (Cochabamba) – last with 2 points.
Blooming (Santa Cruz) – 3rd with 4 points.
Destroyers – 2nd with 8 points and going to the semifinals.
Oriente Petrolero – group winners with 10 points. They did not lose even one match.
Group B:
Litoral (La Paz) – 3rd with 2 points.
The Strongest – 2nd with 4 points.
Bolivar – group winner with 6 points.
In the semifinals Bolivar was eliminated by Destroyers 0-0 and 0-2.
Oriente Petrolero (Santa Cruz) lost to The Strongest 1-0 and 1-3. Standing from left: Rómer Roca, Roberto Brunetto, Carlos Leonel Trucco, Marciano Saldías, Claudio Chena (Argentina), Carlos Gabriel Amodeo. Crouching: Wilson Avila, Celio Alves, Víctor Hugo Antelo, Erwin “Chichi” Romero, José Luis Medrano.
In the final of the stage Destroyers (Santa Cruz) lost both legs to The Strongest – 1-3 and 0-2.
And the grand championship final was a La Paz derby, as many times before and after: The Strongest vs Bolivar. Bolivar was stronger than The Strongest and destroyed them 3-0.
The Strongest (La Paz) lost and finished 2nd – always a disappointment for them. Well, next year may be better.

Familiar champion, but a title is always the aim of Bolivar (La Paz). This one was second in a row and 9th altogether. Thus Bolivar became the most successful Bolivian club, besting Jorge Wilstermann, which had 8 titles. The Strongest with their 5 titles trailed quite far behind.