Paraguay

Paraguay. Small – as ever – league, so complicated championship going through 4 stages. One relegated, one promoted.


General Caballero (Zeballos Cué)
won Second Division and went up.

The structure of the top league championship was as follows: three similar stages at first – one-leg round-robin tournaments. The top 2 teams at each stage got bonus points to carry over to the final stage. In case two teams finished with equal points, a play-off was played to decide the stage winner. After that an aggregate table was made, combining the records of the initial stages and the top 6 teams in it went to the final stage. As for relegation, it seemed to be some aggregate record of few previous championship, for there was no other visible indication – Sport Colombia (Fernando de la Mora) was relegated, but it was last only in the first stage and 8th in the aggregate table. Down they went, though.

On top, the season progressed this way: Sol de America and Guarani finished with 12 points each in the first stage and Guarani won the play-off on penalty shoot-out.

Libertad won the second stage, followed by Olimpia.

Sol de America won the third stage, followed by Atletico Colegiales.

The top 6 in the aggregate table qualified to the final: Sol de America, Atletico Colegiales, Guarani, Cerro Porteno, Libertad, Olimpia. Last in this table was Sportivo San Lorenzo (San Lorenzo), Nacional (Asuncion) – 9th, Sport Colombia – 8th, and Sportivo Luqueno (Luque) – 7th. The season for those 4 was over.

Bonus points, according to performance in every stage: Sol de America – 3, Guarani and Libertad – 2, Atletico Colegiales and Olimpia -1. Cerro Porteno entered the final tournament without any bomus points and at the end that was the decisive factor. The teams played ones again the rest, as in every previous stage and the final table was the end of the championship. Olimpia and Cerro Porteno were the best at the final, but the strategy did not work…

Atletico Colegiales (4 Mojores) ended last with 4 points (3+1), Guarani (Asuncion) – 5th with 5 (3+2),

Libertad (Asuncion) – 4th with 6 points (4+2)

 

Cerro Porteno (Asuncion) – 3rd with 7 points (7+0). Standing from left: Figueredo, Nunes, Jacquet, Zabala, Zinnavoda, Fernandez. First row: Perez, Mercado, Morel, Olmedo, Gamarra. Olimpia (Asuncion) – 2nd with 8 points (7+1). To the surprise of their foes and to the delight of their supporters, Sol de America finished on top with 9 points. Their final campaign was not all that strong – 2 wins, 2 ties, and 1 loss – but they scored most goals. Of course, the winners benefited from their bonus points – indeed, the bonus points placed them on top of the final table, but it was well deserved, for Sol de America had splendid season – their lowest place in the earlier stages was 7th in the second stage, but they ended 2nd in the first stage and won the third stage. They were 1st in the aggregate table with 13 wins, 8 ties, and 6 losses and no matter what happened at the final stage, the usual leaders – Olimpia and Cerro Porteno – had weak season, coming to life only at the very end: in the aggregate table Cerro Porteno was 4th and Olimpia – 6th. It was wonderful victory of the underdog, of course – Sol de America, founded 1909 in Barrio Obrero, Asuncion, never won anything in its already long history. They had to satisfied with success in other sports, but who would care for that when there was no football triumph. The club was always in the shadow of not only Olimpia and Cerro Porteno, but also Libertad, Guarani, and even Nacional. The win for the first time was just fantastic. Such a victory deserves one more photo of the winning team – no stars here, only striker Faustino Alonso and goalkeeper Jorge Battaglia went to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and they were not starters in the national team. Perhaps the big clubs used the World Cup as a kind of excuse for their failure, but there was nothing to diminish the success of Sol de America – they had so solid record this season.