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.
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