Venezuela

Venezuela. The last championship held in one year – the next season will be 1986-87.

Universidad de Los Andes (Merida) and

Deportivo Galicia (Caracas) were the best in Second Division, but that did not mean promotion. As it was in the previous years, both teams stayed in the lower league and the top tier remained unchanged.

Connected or not to the strange requirements for really going up, some clubs were seemingly doomed to stay in anonymity – at least ULA and Galicia had been members of the top league. But others, like the pictured Pepeganda Margarita remained in the shadows and what happened to them is perhaps only a matter of local interest and memory.

The top league was still of 11 teams and played 2-part championship: in the opening stage the league was divided into 2 groups and the top 3 of each went to the final stage. Grupo Oriental was won comfortably by Deportivo Italia with 16 points, followed by CS Maritimo with 12 points and Caracas FC with 11 points.

Mineros de Gayana was unlucky 4th with 10 points and that was the end of the season for them. The other two early exits were Atletico Anzoategui, 5th with 9 points, and UCV FC, which had terrible season – they were last with 2 points.

Deportivo Tachira won Grupo Occidental with 11 points.

Estudiantes Merida took 2nd place with 9 points, followed by Portuguesa FC with 8 points, which qualified to the next stage only on better goal-difference. Atletico Zamora was 4th and out, also with 8 points, and last was Union Espanola de Lara with 4 points.

The final stage – a round-robin tournament of the best 6 showed stronger teams from the Occidental group. Caracas FC finished last with 4 points. Portuguesa FC was 5th with 7 points. Deportivo Italia, so confident in the opening stage, was now down – 4th with 9 points. CS Maritimo was the best team from Grupo Oriental, but not a title contender – 3rd with 11 points. Just like in the group stage, Estudiantes Merida tried to win, but finished 2nd with 14 points.

Deportivo Tachira was strong from start to finish and won its 4th title – they finished on top with 15 points from 6 wins, 3 draws, and lost 1 match, 18-7 goal-difference. All together, they won 11 games, tied 4, and lost 3, scoring 31 goals and receiving 14. May be not very impressive numbers, but this was small league without room for large numbers. The squad was largely anonymous to foreign eye, but the boys played together for sometime and were well adjusted to each other. Three Uruguayans helped – Francovig, Maldonado, and Bachini.