Daniel Avellaneda
10/17/2020 21:16
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 10/17/2020 9:16 PM
If Argentine politics is recycled with the same actors,
why would soccer be an exception?
Much more, in a country in which
the decisions of the AFA are strictly related to the government of the day.
So, when nobody believed that there would be such an unorthodox tournament with 30 teams,
the post-quarantine championships are not too far from that monstrosity concocted by Julio Humberto Grondona also in Kirchner times.
The 2020 Professional Football League Cup that was presented this Friday at the Ezeiza property, between chinstraps and
invisible papers,
will be the first of the three contests that will be played until December 2021. With one addition: until the end of 2022 there will be no relegations in Argentina.
In this way,
from next year there will be 26 teams in the First Division and in the next ... 28!
"In principle, that's the idea," they confirmed to
Clarín
from the Argentine Professional Football League (LPFA).
And they do well to clarify.
After all, if
“everything happens”
was the motto that
Don Julio
had engraved on his ring,
“
everything changes”
is the leitmotif in the times of Claudio "Chiqui" Tapia.
The draw for the new Argentine soccer tournament.
Photo: TV picture
It happened with the Super League, a request from Mauricio Macri whose main objective was the irruption of the SAD (Sports Public Limited Companies) and that is why the structure of the Spanish League was copied.
Everything was in a failed attempt and with the return of Peronism to the Casa Rosada, the LPFA (Professional League of Argentine Soccer) emerged.
Also, at that time, the Super League Cup, which was canceled when only one date had been disputed and
Covid-19 was a distant virus for the Minister of Health, Ginés González García.
There will be two short tournaments, one with a Cup format, the other is still under study, and a long one.
The first will begin on October 30 and end on January 17, 2021, with a very compressed schedule.
In the first stage, the 24 teams will be divided into six zones of four members that will play home and away matches, a model similar to that of the Libertadores group stage.
The best two of each group will enter the Championship Zone, in which 12 teams divided into two groups of six will participate.
Third and fourths will go to the Complementation Zone, also parties in two groups of half a dozen each.
In that instance, each team will play five games -only the first leg- and the locality will be determined by the sum of points from the first phase.
The winners of the two championship zones will play a single match final that will
not only define the 2020 LPFA Cup champion;
In addition, a place for the Libertadores 2021 will be at stake
.
For their part, the winners of the two groups of the
Complementation Zone
will play a final,
whose winner will fight -also in a single match- for a place in the South American 2022 with the loser of the final that defines the star and the pass to the Libertadores 2021. Clearer
?
Water...
The six zones:
Group 1:
Racing, Arsenal, Atlético Tucumán and Unión.
Group 2:
Independent, Defense and Justice, Central Córdoba and Colón.
Group 3:
River, Banfield, Godoy Cruz and Rosario Central.
Group 4:
Boca, Lanús, Talleres and Newell's.
Group 5:
San Lorenzo, Argentinos, Students and Aldosivi.
Group 6:
Vélez, Huracán, Gymnastics and Board of Trustees.
Some peculiarities
It is not defined, but the idea is that
Patronato-Gimnasia will
open the game
on October 30, the birthday of Diego Maradona,
coach of the La Plata team and emblem of soccer at the national and world level.
As in the Premier League, it will be played on festive dates.
It will not be a
boxing day,
but it will be quite similar.
The ball will roll on December 27 and January 3.
The second tournament will be played from February to the end of March.
"We have not yet defined how it will be played," they
confided without blushing in the LPFA.
It could also have a National Cup format.
The 2021 champion, however, will be resolved in a 25-date tournament that will also have no relegation.
It will be played from April to December.
Then, in 2022, the project that was proposed before the ASPO was decreed will be sought:
play from January to December.
There would be a 27-date tournament and a National Cup.
There will already be 28 teams.
Almost like in the last days of Grondona ...
JCH.