Daniel Avellaneda
04/25/2020 - 18:48
- Clarín.com
- sports
The series will have an abrupt end . It doesn't matter that 13 chapters are missing. The Super League Cup will be canceled. And behind this decision, the map of Argentine soccer will change. On Tuesday it will be made official through the Executive Committee chaired by Claudio Tapia: the 2019/2020 season will be terminated. After so much virtual threading, via WhatsApp and Zoom, the leaders reached an initial agreement : the declines will be eliminated for two years, the averages will be frozen, the two promotions will be maintained and a 26-team championship will be played in 2021.
Season 2019/20
Positions
Only in 2022, with 28 participants, will it compete again for permanence. Then, the averages of the current season will be restored , a photo that finds Central Córdoba, Board and Gymnastics in the red zone. Clubs that, ultimately, will be able to celebrate that they will not lose the category in 2020.
Super League 2019/20
Averages
The averages, in short, were the key to the solution to reach this restructuring. River and Boca, with their presidents Rodolfo D'Onofrio and Jorge Amor Ameal at the helm, had emphatically opposed the suppression of declines. They also didn't want a massive 30-team tournament. The thread turned and turned until there was a common point. With the uncertainty of a return to football that, at best, could happen in September, the leaders decided to cut their losses. And all will be, to a greater or lesser extent, satisfied.
Time past, like the Argentine tournament. Rodolfo D'Onofrio with Jorge Amor Ameal, in Puerto Madero. (Photo: Guillermo Adami).
The teams that had the rope around their necks will breathe relief because they will not lose the category or the income corresponding to audiovisual rights . The clubs that did good campaigns in the last three seasons will sleep peacefully because they will maintain their average when the declines are reactivated. All, in addition, will be able to lower the costs of schools armed by the urgency and will be able to promote youth. In short, the decision is strictly linked to the economic consequences of the stand.
Simultaneously, the Super League will disappear and the Professional League will begin to function within the AFA structure. The next step will be to announce the classification to international tournaments. It will be done through the general table that will include the 23 matches of the tournament that Boca won plus the first date of the ill-fated Super League Cup. The champion (51 points), River (47), Racing (42) and Argentinos (42), located from second to fourth place, will go to the Libertadores; Vélez (39), San Lorenzo (39), Newell's (38), Talleres (37), Defensa y Justicia (36) and Lanús (36), who finished between fifth and tenth place, will enter the South American Championship.
If the Argentine Cup cannot be played, the quotas corresponding to the Libertadores and the South American would be for Vélez (39) - located in fifth place - and Central (36) - eleventh -, respectively. There is a row in Liniers because they intended that only the 23 dates of the Super League be computed. The Regulations are clear: the classification for international tournaments depended on the sum of the points obtained in the championship and the group stage of the Super League Cup. Although only the first day was played, with the exceptions of River-Atlético Tucumán and Estudiantes-Defensa y Justicia, this time what was written by hand was not erased with the elbow. The same will not happen with the descents, it is clear.
However, the organizers' idea is to play the Argentina Cup. Fundamentally, if it is played again in the spring. It will depend, of course, on the progress of the coronavirus. The Minister of Health, Ginés González García, has already warned that soccer will be one of the last activities to get out of quarantine. In his own words, the peak of infected is expected in June. And there is still nothing resolved regarding the return to training.
How will promotions be defined? Also this Tuesday, possibly, there is a resolution. Marcelo Achile, president of the First National, told Clarín : "We want them to define themselves on the field, not through the desks." His team, Defensores de Belgrano, occupies second place in zone 2. With 41 points, he is behind San Martín de Tucumán (44). In zone 1, the pointer is Atlanta (38) who owes a match against Independiente Rivadavia de Mendoza, suspended 5 minutes after the first half due to incidents.
What if you can't play throughout the year? It would be a drastic measure, although Nicolás Russo did not rule it out on Friday. The president of Lanús is one of the strong voices of the League, but it has greater resonance for his ties to Sergio Massa, head of the Chamber of Deputies and the government's link with the AFA.
What if football returns in September? There will be an "ad-hoc" tournament , as the leaders called it. An express cup that will have two objectives: a quota for the Libertadores of 2021 and to compensate television, which did not stop paying but received no match in return.
JCh.