Promedios - The Argentine relegation system explained

Olimpo players celebrating their 0-2 win at Boca Juniors
that put them one point clear at the top of the Clausura
and one point clear of the relegation zone.

One of the classic benchmarks of a good football knowledge is the ability to explain the offside rule. To me this is setting the bar way too low, the offside rule is pretty easy to understand, after spending a few minutes reading up on the offside rule you would have to be as thick as Andy Gray to fail to understand it. For me the real benchmark of footballing knowledge is the ability to comprehend the notoriously complicated "promedios" (points averaging) system used in Argentina and other South American leagues to determine relegation.

On Sunday 20 March 2011 Olimpo recorded their first ever win against fallen giants Boca Juniors with an impressive 0-2 away win at the once intimidating Bombonera stadium. This result lifted them to the top of the Clausura 2011 table on thirteen points from six games and also saw them climb out of the relegation places for the first time since they played Boca Juniors in the corresponding fixture of the Apertura in September 2010.

For people that are used to the classic home and away round robin European style season with standard relegation for the bottom few teams that is used in England, Spain, Italy, Germany and most of the other major European leagues the concept of being both one point clear at the top of the table and one point above the relegation zone is rather confusing. Probably the most unusual outcome of the "promedios" system was the relegation of Talleres de Córdoba at the end of the Clausura 2004 tournament despite their managing a 3rd place finish in the Clausura and finishing with the sixth best points total over the season.

The system that gives such unusual outcomes is actually fairly simple. A team's standing in the relegation table is determined by dividing the number of points obtained over the previous three seasons by the number of games played over the last three seasons. This means that at the end of the season most teams have their points tally divided by 114 (3 x 38 game seasons) with the exception of promoted teams who have their smaller points tallies divided by the fewer games that they have played. The benchmark for survival is usually around 1.2 points per game, only 3 sides have finished in the bottom four places with an average of better than 1.2 (Lanús in 2001-02 with 1.245, Argentinos Juniors in 2005-06 with 1.224 & River Plate in 2010-11 with 1.238).

I am going to use the "promedios table from the 2003-04 season (below) to illustrate some of the key issues.

Team	Average	Points	Played	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
River Plate	2.008	229	114	84	79	66
Boca Juniors	1.947	222	114	68	79	75
Quilmes	1.578	60	38	N/A	N/A	60
San Lorenzo	1.526	174	114	57	56	61
Racing Club	1.500	171	114	68	53	50
Vélez Sársfield	1.464	167	114	48	66	53
Colón de Santa Fe	1.421	162	114	56	57	49
Banfield	1.403	160	114	48	48	64
Arsenal de Sarandí	1.368	104	76	N/A	49	55
Newell's Old Boys	1.324	151	114	51	49	51
Gimnasia de La Plata	1.298	148	114	64	46	38
Independiente	1.280	146	114	41	61	44
Rosario Central	1.280	146	114	40	62	44
Lanús	1.263	144	114	51	51	42
Estudiantes de La Plata	1.210	138	114	51	43	44
Olimpo de Bahía Blanca	1.184	90	76	N/A	51	39
Talleres de Córdoba	1.166	133	114	30	44	59
Atlético de Rafaela	1.131	43	38	N/A	N/A	43
Chacarita	1.105	126	114	47	41	38
Nueva Chicago	1.026	117	114	48	41	28

2003-04 was unusual in the fact that the two worst performing teams over the season were also the two sides to suffer automatic relegation. In most seasons one of the worst performing teams survives relegation because they have a bank account of points from the previous two seasons to fall back on. This effect can be seen in Gimnasia's comfortable 11th place positioning despite having five fewer points in 2003-04 than Atlético Rafaela who finished in a relegation playoff position despite earning 43 points over the full season. To put this in perspective Westham's total of 42 points in 2002-03 is the highest ever achieved by a side relegated from the English Premier League and many sides have survived with an average of less than one point per game, Hull City survived with only 35 points in 2008-09, a total that would have meant certain relegation in Argentina. In 2007-08 Olimpo were automatically relegated in 19th place with 42 points.

The promedios system is notoriously hard on newly promoted sides because the majority of the established sides have this bank account of points to bolster their average if they have a fairly poor season. Many critics claim that this effect is exactly the reason it was introduced in the first place. The evidence backs this view as the "promedios" relegation system was only brought in to protect the "big five" most popular and richest clubs after San Lorenzo were relegated in 1982. The first beneficiaries of the Promedios system were River Plate and Racing de Córdoba who remained in the Primera División at the expense of Racing Club de Avellaneda and Rosario Central who would have survived under the old system.

Often when a side relies on previously acquired points from preceding "good seasons" for survival, they find themselves in big trouble when the next season starts because the good points tally from three seasons ago is discarded. This is the situation that Talleres found themselves in at the beginning of the 2003-04 season, they were lumbered with only 74 points from their previous 78 games and had to fight hard to try to avoid relegation. The Córdoba outfit romped to a 3rd place finish in the Clausura tournament and only five teams in the whole league acquired more than Talleres' total of 59 points over the full season, however their two previous poor campaigns dragged their average down to such an extent that they found themselves facing and losing a relegation playoff against Argentinos Juniors.

At the beginning of the 2010-11 season River Plate found themselves in a similar situation having endured two of the worst seasons in their history in 2008-09 and 2009-10. Even though they finished with the 6th highest points tally in 2010-11 they ended up suffering the first relegation in their 110 year history after a 1-3 aggregate defeat against Belgrano de Córdoba in their relegation playoff.

Olimpo's rise from rock bottom of the promedios to a position of safety in the space of only six games illustrates the one big advantage that newly promoted sides have; greater mobility. For a newly promoted side the three points from a win is worth 0.078 points at the end of the season (3 divided by 38) while three points for an established team is only worth 0.026 (3/114) in the final relegation standings. This means that a good run of form can still potentially save struggling Primera División new boys with half a dozen games or so remaining while an established team on the same average would be resigned to relegation.

This mobility is also a double edged sword, a poor run of form can see newly promoted sides plummet down the table as seen with All Boys in the Clausura. they began the tournament with 1.368 (26/19) points per game but only one win in their first six games has seen their points average drop dramatically to 1.200 (30/25) while fellow Clausura strugglers Boca Juniors who had also only obtained four points from their opening six games saw a much smaller decrease in their points average, from 1.400 (133/95) to 1.356 (137/101).

Once you get your head around the concept it is fairly simple in principle but the difficulty really kicks in when you are trying to working out relegation permutations. Unless you have been blessed with a mathematical mind capable of easily working out which of 76/69 or 113/107 is higher, you either need to get out a calculator or rely on someone in the media to work it out for you.

As I have shown it is easy to understand the principle but one unnamed computer game manufacturer famously failed to take into account the fact that promoted teams have their points divided by the number of games that they have played and just divided all the points totals by 114 at the end of the season, meaning that in their computer game a promoted team that won all 38 of their matches to obtain the maximum 114 points would almost certainly be relegated with a points average of only 1.000 points per game.

If after reading this you can now understand and explain the Argentine relegation system and already have a decent understanding of the offside rule, then by my estimation you are entitled to claim that you have a good knowledge of football.

The remarkable decline of Boca Juniors

Martín Palermo holding the 2007 Copa Libertadores

Back in 2007 Boca Juniors were undoubtedly at the very pinnacle of South American football. Coach Miguel Angel Russo had just led them to their fourth Copa Libertadores in eight years. The team that demolished Brazilian side Grêmio over the two legged final included players like Ever Banega, Neri Cardoza, Claudio Morel Rodrígauz, Rodrigo Palacio, Juan Román Riquelme and Martín Palermo.

Few would have predicted then that within four years a team shorn of all but the last two names would find themselves way down in 17th place in the early stages of the Clausura 2011 tornament having finished in 11th 16th and 11th in their last three campaigns or that they would be so far away from even achieving qualification to play in the international tournaments they utterly dominated for the best part of a decade.

The decline was not instantaneous, they won the Apertura and the Recopa Sudamericana in 2008 but the downwards trajectory since then has been unmissable. People can point to many factors to explain what has happened and everyone in Argentina has an opinion.

It is clear that the current team has suffered from the facts that Riquelme has barely played in two years after developing legs of glass and talismanic goalscorer Martín Palermo has struggled to find his goalscoring touch and lost all of the little pace that he had back in 2007. It is also clear that the club has suffered from unprecedented managerial turmoil, with eight managerial changes since Russo's departure in 2007. the rate of managerial changes has increased to such a rate that the position has changed hands five times since the beginning of 2010.

Julio César Falcioni is the latest manager
to try to turn things around at Boca.

After current manager Julio Cesar Falcioni was installed I predicted that one of his biggest challenges would come were he to consider dropping ageing club legends like Riquelme and Palermo. The Riquelmegate storm that arose when Falcioni left a fit and willing Riquelme out of the team to play All Boys in the third round of the Clausura confirmed my predictions. The fans quite clearly have more loyalty to the players that served the club through the most successful period in their history than to a new manager that many are still sceptical about.

To me Falcioni was an odd choice of manager for a club like Boca Juniors, but he does seem to have the pragmatic attitude necessary to begin to rebuild confidence at the Bombonera but the board and the fans would have to dramatically lower their expectations in order to give him the time to succeed, something they refused to do for the previous "permanent" manager Claudio Borghi who was shown the door after only fourteen games of the Apertura last year.

It is obviously impossible to attribute such a decline to one factor but for me the biggest contributor to the situation the club find themselves in is the lack of squad stability. Their grandstand enganche Riquelme has been injured or out of form for the past couple of seasons but for me the really big issue is that the majority of the players from 2007 have departed and the academy and transfer policy have not bought in adequate replacements. As the club's achievements have slipped further and further away from expectations the turnover of players has become even more frantic than the turnover of coaching staff. In their game against Vélez Sársfield at the beginning of March this year only two players remained from the team that played Vélez a little over a year ago.

18 year old Ever Banega was one of the revelations of
Copa Libertadores 2007.

For me the most significant departure amongst many since Boca Juniors lifted the Libertadores in 2007 was that of the 19 year old midfielder Ever Banega who joined Valencia for a reported fee of $18 million. I remember thinking at the time that he was leaving "too soon" and that the benefits to both club and player of staying for another couple of seasons would have been immense. However the reported fee was so high that Boca almost had to cash their chips and take the huge sum on offer for a teenager with only 40 odd games worth of first team experience and no goals, given the possibility that he could subsequently have suffered a career threatening injury or dip in form at any time.

As it is the decision to take the cash has not been great for either party, Banega didn't really establish himself at Valencia, spent a season on loan at Atlético Madrid and then began to make a positive impression in a struggling team after his recall to Valencia in 2009. Playing well in underachieving sides was not enough for him to find his way into Diego Maradona's 2010 World Cup squad, an omission criticised as one of Maradona's worst by myself and other respected South American football commentators.

Had Banega stayed in Argentina for another couple of years and continued to improve on the form he showed as an 18 year old back in 2007 in the blue and gold of Boca Juniors he would probably have benefited from much more big game experience than as a bit part player for two underachieving sides overseas.

How could Maradona have left him out of the World Cup squad had he been the most obvious star of the one team that Diego could never have ignored? Had Banega played in that notorious game against Germany, Mascherano would not have been the only engine in the middle of the park and the team could possibly have avoided their most humiliating World Cup exit since they failed to qualify for World Cup 1970.

Returning to the plight of Boca Juniors, they have not even qualified to play in the last two Copa Libertadores and given their poor start to the Clausura they seem very unlikely to even qualify for this year's much derided Copa Sudamericana  that they won back-to-back in 2004 and 2005. As I have said, Banega's sale was one factor amongst many in this decline, however it is illustrative of how the voracious appetites for young Argentine talent in Europe and Mexico is now so powerful that it can even bring giants to their knees.

Rise of the interior?

The Godoy Cruz players celebrating their first ever
appearance in the Copa Libertadores.

When Argentine side Godoy Cruz made their international début in the 2011 Copa Libertadores with a 2-1 win against 2008 champions Liga de Quito in group 8 it was a historic moment for football fans in Mendoza Province. Not only were Godoy Cruz the first team from the sparsely populated province that stretches from the heights of the Andes in the west to the Cuyo plains in the east to feature in a Libertadores game, it was the first time that Argentina has been represented in South America's premier club competition by an indirectly affiliated side (from outside of the traditional triopoly of Argentine football Buenos Aires City, Buenos Aires Province & Santa Fe Province).


The most joyful thing about their achievement is that they managed to qualify for the Libertadores without sacrificing their style of play. Throughout the 2010 Apertura Godoy Cruz were one of the most entertaining and unpredictable teams to watch. They only managed to win three of their ten home games but had the third best away record behind the runaway top two of Estudiantes and Vélez Sarsfield. Their nineteen games featured fifty seven goals, an average of three per game, so if you judge entertainment by the number of goals per game they were by far the most entertaining team to watch in the Apertura.


The most impressive thing about their achievement is that they managed to finish as the fourth most consistent Argentine team in 2010 in only their fourth season in the top flight. They made their Primera División debut in 2006-07 but were relegated at the end of the season thanks to the notorious promedios (points averaging) system. They bounced straight back and in 2008-09 they secured their top flight status. At the end of the 2009-10 season Atlético Tucumán were relegated meaning that Godoy Cruz were the only remaining team in the Argentine top flight from the non-traditional provinces.

No team from outside the three traditional heartlands of Argentine football has ever won the Argentine league, the closest that any of the indirectly affiliated  teams have ever come were the two Córdoba based sides Talleres and Racing that finished as runners up more than thirty years ago. Talleres appeared in the final of the 1977 Nacional but were beaten by Independiente, and three years later Racing lost the final of the Nacional to Rosario Central.

In 1999 Talleres de Córdoba became the first side
from outside of the three traditional heartlands of
Argentine football to win a major honour.

In 1999 Talleres became the first indirectly affiliated side ever to win a major honour when they won the last edition of the defunct Copa Conmebol but fortunes have not been kind to them in the intervening twelve years, they were relegated from the Primera División in 2004 despite a 3rd place finish and in 2009 they were relegated from the Argentine 2nd division to join city rivals Racing Club in the regionalised third division, Torneo Argentino A.

Clubs that face relegation out of the top two tiers of Argentine football face very different challenges, indirectly affiliated teams from the interior face the notoriously difficult challenge of adjusting to life in the regional leagues. Argentino A currently has 25 teams with only one automatic promotion spot available, Argentino B has 48 teams and relegation to Argentino C means a battle against more than 250 other teams to secure one of the few promotion places. Directly affiliated teams from Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires Province & Santa Fe Province drop down into the Metropolitana structure which is a further three tiers of standard leagues with only one relegation spot at the bottom. In recent years Tigre and All Boys have achieved the double promotion necessary to find their way back from the Metropolitana to the Primera División.


Several indirectly affiliated teams from the interior that once played at the highest level of Argentine football have disappeared almost without trace into the labyrinthine structure of Argentino C, a couple of the most notable examples being Altos Hornos Zapla who played with the best in the 1970s and Huracán de Corrientes who featured at the highest level as recently as the 1990s.

It is no surprise that the top clubs come from the most heavily populated areas, the same can be said for most countries. In Uruguay eleven out of the twelve top flight teams come from the capital Montevideo, it is nowhere near as extreme in Argentina but fourteen of the twenty Primera División sides come from greater Buenos Aires and of the remaining six, four come from the large conurbation of La Plata and the heavily populated Santa Fe Province. The remaining two teams are Olimpo from the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires Province and Godoy Cruz from Mendoza.

Huracán de Corrientes have disappeared into obscurity
after playing at the highest level of Argentine football
as recently as the 1990's

As it stands, four of the six non-Buenos Aires based teams are pretty much immune from relegation, the other two, Olimpo and Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata are embroiled in the relegation fight but still capable of escaping the drop zone, meaning that as many as four Buenos Aires based sides could find themselves relegated at the end of the season. The relegated teams are almost certain  to be replaced by teams from the interior given that eleven of the top twelve sides in the second division come from the interior and the other team is Aldosivi from the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires Province.

Of the eleven "interior" teams chasing promotion the most famous are four time Argentine champions Rosario Central who suffered relegation from the Primera División last season after losing a playoff against All Boys. Other notable teams in the promotion chase are Unión de Santa Fe who were runners up in the Nacional championship in 1979, Gimnasia de Jujuy who are historically the most successful team from the far north of Argentina and Atlético Rafaela who have missed out on promotion in the last two seasons after failing to beat Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata in playoff games.

The recent success of Godoy Cruz and the host of teams from the interior vying for promotion shows that football is alive and kicking in the Argentine interior, however there remain some real concerns about football in the indirectly affiliated provinces of Argentina. The main problem is that even though they are doing brilliantly by themselves Godoy Cruz are the only representatives of the 21 non-traditional provinces currently playing in the top flight. Another concern is that C.A.I. from Comodoro Rivadavia, the only team from the southern provinces playing at the national level look certain to be relegated to the regional leagues at the end of the season.

In their second Copa Libertadores fixture Godoy Cruz suffered a 1-3 home defeat against Uruguayan Libertadores veterans Peñarol. It was a poor result in front of their own fans but they can take comfort in the fact that they have had an incredibly good away record over the last year and if they can find some points away from home in the Libertadores they will still have a good chance of making it out of the toughest of the eight groups to reach the knock-out stages. Fans from all over Argentina will be behind them because at best they represent hope that success can be decentralised in Argentine football and at worst people will cheer them on because nobody knows how long it will be before another team from the backwaters of Argentine football will break the dominance of the Buenos Aires/La Plata/Santa Fe Province triopoly in order to have a tilt at the most prestigious trophy in South American club football.

What ever happened to? Jhon Viáfara

Viáfara playing for Portsmouth
against Middlesbrough in 2005.

In June 2005 Portsmouth FC manager Alan Perrin signed Colombia international midfielder Jhon Viáfara from Once Caldas for a fee of £800,000 as he rebuilt the team for the 2005-06 Premier League season.

Viáfara had started his playing career in 1999 with Deportivo Pasto where he played until 2003 sandwiching a brief stint with América de Cali. He came to international attention as part of the Once Caldas team that stunned South America by winning 2004 Copa Libertadores. Their triumph against the holders Boca Juniors in the final was one of the biggest shocks in the history of the tournament because Once Caldas had only ever won two Colombian league titles at the time and Boca Juniors were undoubtedly the strongest team in South America having utterly dominated the Copa Libertadores winning the tournament in 2000, 2001 & 2003. Viáfara was one of the most easily identifiable stars of the Once Caldas team having scored this wonderful long range goal only eight minutes into the second leg of the final.

He also attracted more attention playing for the Colombia national team that reached the semi-finals of the 2004 Copa América tournament and took to the world stage again to play for Once Caldas in the last ever Intercontinental Cup final against Porto.

Viáfara played quite regularly for Portsmouth in the early part of the 2005-06 season however after the sacking of Perrin and his replacement by Harry Redknapp Viáfara was farmed out on loan to Real Sociedad. Viáfara played a total of 15 games for Portsmouth, (14 in the league and 1 in the League Cup). He headed his only goal for Pompey in a 2-1 defeat against Manchester City.

After completing the 2005-06 season with Real Sociedad he returned to England and was transferred to Portsmouth's fierce local rivals Southampton FC for a reported fee of £750,000. He had a solid 2006-07 season with the club but there was an unfortunate end to the season for him. He put in a great performance scoring two goals in the Championship playoff semi-final against Derby County but saw his team eliminated on penalties. To make matters worse Derby went on to secure promotion but suffered a record-breakingly bad season only winning one of their 38 top flight games.

In the summer break he represented the Colombia national team at Copa América 2007. There was no repeat of Colombia's run to the semi-final, due mainly to a devestating 5-0 defeat to Paraguay in the opening game.

Viáfara in Southampton Colours

Viáfara continued to play for the Saints until the summer of 2008 when he was allowed to leave by short lived Dutch manager Jan Poortvliet who stated that he did not want anyone who was not completely committed to the club to remain. The official reason given for his departure was that he was homesick, however the turmoil at the club and his public falling out with Poortvliet must also be taken into consideration.

It is no surprise that Viáfara did decide to leave Southampton to return to Once Caldas. he had played under four different Saints managers within a six month period, the club were struggling at the wrong end of the table in the 2nd tier of English football, he was having a tough time but instead of offering support Poortvliet  resorted to banning him from training and dishing out public criticism. All a far cry from his experiences in the Copa Libertadores final, the semi-finals of Copa América and the Intercontinental Cup final. He made a total of 83 appearances for the Saints, scoring 7 goals.

Viáfara scored a vital goal for Once Caldas in the
2004 Copa Libertadores final, he returned to the club in 2008.

Viáfara's return to Once Caldas coincided with a huge improvement in fortune for the team They went from struggling along near the bottom of the table to winning the Apertura 2009 tournament, a stunning achievement given that they only scraped into the playoffs in the last of the eight available positions.

In 2010 he joined La Equidad and helped them to reach the final of the 2010 Apertura where they lost on penalties to Junior. They also reached the playoffs in the Clausura 2010 tournament. After this highly successful year with one of Colombia's smaller teams he was signed by Atlético Junior for the 2011 season and their 2011 Copa Libertadores campaign.

Viáfara's career with Junior has got off to a great start, he scored vital goals in both of their opening games of the Copa Libertadores Group 2 games. The first was the opening goal in a decent 1-2 away win against tournament debutants León de Huánuco and the second was the winner in a 2-1 home win against Brazilian giants and group favourites Gremio.

Viáfara celebrating his goal for Junior against León
in the 2011 Copa Libertadores group stages.

It seems that after several difficult years in English football Viáfara has managed to resurrect his playing career and is enjoying his return to the international stage. He has played a total of 32 games for his country, scoring 1 goal. 2008 was a particularly bad year for him, not only was he stuck in the middle of the Southampton débâcle for much of it, it was also is the only year since 2003 that he failed to make any appearances for the Colombia national team.  At the age of 32 and having rediscovered his form he can still keep his hopes alive of playing Copa América this summer or perhaps even the World Cup in 2014.

Portsmouth fans memories of Viáfara will understandably be clouded by his association with the disastrous Perrin era that nearly resulted in relegation, however few would put the blame directly on Viáfara's shoulders. He will be more fondly remembered by Southampton fans. Even though at the time they were experiencing their first few seasons outside the top flight in 27 years he was one of their more reliable players and things have got much worse for them since his departure back in 2008.

Viáfara can also count himself as one of a select band of players to have crossed the south coast rivalry which includes players such as C.B. Fry, Bill Rochford, Mick Mills, Mick Channon, Dave Beasant, John Beresford, Antii Niemi, Eyal Berkovic, Vincent Péricard, Peter Crouch and Ricardo Fuller.

Part of the What ever happened to? series.

South American football awards 2010

Hello and welcome to the Fútbol Fútbol Fútbol awards for 2010. 

The awards focus on events in South American football, however there is room for an expatriate player of the year section to pay tribute to the best of the thousands of South American footballers plying their trade on other continents. 

You may find some of the awards surprising or idiosyncratic, however if you are offended by any of these selections you can either find another website to tell you exactly what you want to read or failing that you could leave your opinion on why we are wrong in the comments section below.

Enjoy.

Team of the year

1. Fluminense - In recent years Fluminense have suffered the heartbreak of losing two major continental finals on penalties. In 2010 they finally got their hands on some major silverware winning their first Brazilian league championship since 1984. They held their nerve in a dramatic final day in which three teams had the chance to take the title in last round of fixtures.
2. Uruguay - For a team representing a nation of only 3.5 million inhabitants to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup was an astonishing achievement. To do it playing entertaining attacking football was simply brilliant. The fact that they were turned from heroes to villains in the minds of countless idiots with one instinctive handball from Luis Suárez and a wasted penalty from Gyan only reinforced our support for "la celeste".
3. LDU Quito - The Ecuadorian side reinforced their position as one of the new giants of South American football by beating Estudiantes de La Plata to become only the 3rd team ever to retain the Recopa Sudamericana (South American Super Cup). They also reached the semi-finals of the Copa Sudamericana and won yet another Ecuadorian championship.

Game of the year

1. Argentinos Juniors 4-3 Independiente - Both teams needed the win to have a chance to catch Argentine Clausura 2010 championship leaders Estudiantes, cue an amazing game featuring an Olympic goal, 2 goals for ex-Argentinos player Leonel Núñez against his former team and two dramatic late goals to turn the tie in favour of eventual champions Argentinos Juniors.
2. Deportivo Cali 6-3 América de Cali - An unbelievable derby game from Colombia featuring one of the all time great hat-tricks from Argentine striker Martín Morel.
3. Cruzeiro 3-4 Atlético Mineiro - Another local derby, this time from Brazil. Atlético Miniero had been struggling along in the relegation zone for months when they faced a trip to their championship chasing local rivals Cruzeiro. Atlético won the game 3-4 and at the end of the season they avoided relegation by 3 points and Cruzeiro missed out on the championship by two points making this the pivotal game in the Brasileirão 2010 championship.

Player of the year

Veteran striker José Luis Calderón came out
of retirement to win one more medal.

1. José Luis Calderón - At the back end of 2009 the veteran striker retired after being left out of the Estudiantes squad for the Copa Libertadores final. Argentinos Juniors manager Claudio Borghi persuaded him to come out of retirement for one last blast with Argentinos Juniors where he was a key player in their Clausura 2010 championship winning campaign. After winning his 4th major title (all acquired in the last 4 years of his 21 year career) he returned to Defensores de Cambaceres where he had started his career way back in 1989 for one last game before finally hanging up his boots in August 2010.
2. Neymar - Brazil's latest wonder kid scored amazing goals, was linked with big money moves to a host of European clubs, scored on his Brazil debut, scored a 7 minute hat-trick, was 2nd top scorer in the Brazilian league and inadvertently flashed his pants to the world.
3. Darío Conca - The star player of Brazilian champions Fluminense and only the second Argentine ever to win the prestigious Bola de Ouro (Brazilian footballer of the year) after Carlos Tévez in 2004.

Expatriate player of the year

1. Lionel Messi - Best payer in the World, head and shoulders above the rest. He won yet another Spanish league with Barcelona and was top scorer in La Liga with an incredible 34 goals in 35 games, scored another 13 goals for the club in other competitions and hit a brilliant last minute winner for Argentina against Brazil in November.
2. Diego Forlán - Top scorer in the 2010 World Cup and won Atlético Madrid the 2009-10 Europa League almost single handedly.
3. Radamel Falcao - A controversial choice considering Porto missed out on the Portuguese league, only winning the 2009-10 Portuguese Cup and also because last season he was only the 2nd top scorer in the Portuguese league behind Paraguayan Óscar Cardozo of Benfica. However Porto are the only remaining unbeaten side in Europe in the 2010-11 season and Falcao has been scoring some magnificent goals.

Manager of the year

Muricy Ramalho 4 times Brasileirão winner.

1. Muricy Ramalho -  He started the year badly, getting sacked as Palmeiras manager in February, however Fluminense snapped him up pretty quickly. In July he was appointed as the Brazil national coach but couldn't take up the role as Fluminense wouldn't let him go. Instead of stropping and making a fuss about it he led Fluminense to their first league title since 1984. His 4th Brasileirão championship in the last 5 tournaments.
2. Omar Asad - Did not win any trophies in his first year as a head coach, however he did lead Mendoza minnows Godoy Cruz to their highest ever finish in the Argentine league (3rd), made them the most entertaining and high scoring team in the Primera División and qualified them for their first ever participation in the Copa Libertadores in 2011.
3. Juan Antonio Pizzi - The Argentine manager of Universidad Cátolica pulled off one of the great comebacks. His team were seven points behind Colo-Colo with only six games of the season remaining however he did not allow his team to give up hope leading them to six consecutive wins while Colo-Colo fell to pieces.

Honourable mentions

• Antonio Mohammed - Took over basket case club Independiente and led them to their first international title in 15 years, winning the Copa Sudamericana 2010.
• Claudio Borghi - Led Argentinos Juniors to the Clausura 2010 championship, their first title since the 4 they won in the mid 80s when he played for the team, later poached by and then sacked as Boca Juniors manager after only 14 games in charge.
• Óscar Tábarez - The veteran Uruguayan manager led his team all the way to the semi-finals of the World Cup and aside from a turgid opening game against France every game was thoroughly enjoyable to watch.
• Gerardo Martino - Argentine manager of Paraguay. He made them one of the most solid and tactically disciplined teams in the World Cup and came the closest to eliminating eventual champions Spain. He did all this without their star player Salvador Cabañas who was shot in the head in January.
• Edgardo Bauza - Returned to Ecuadorian side LDU Quito, retained the Recopa Sudamericana and led them to the 2010 Ecuadorian championship.
• Alex Sabella - After the dissappointments of losing the World Club Cup final at the back end of last year, getting overhauled by Argentinos Juniors in the Clausura 2010 tournament and losing the Recopa Sudamericana to LDU Quito his Estudiantes side won the the Apertura 2010 championship in fine style with a 100% home record.

Incomprehensible managerial departure of the year

1. Marcelo Bielsa (Chile) - Bielsa led Chile to their first World Cup since 1998 and their first win at the tournament since they hosted it in 1962. Later in 2010 he gave his word before elections at the Chilean Football Federation that he would resign as national coach if the incumbent Harold Mayne-Nicholls was unseated by Jorge Segovia. The delegates duly voted 28-22 in favour of Segovia and Chile's most successful and popular coach in years kept his word and resigned.
   
2. Luis Zubeldía (Lanús) - When Luis Zubeldía was appointed as coach of Lanús in 2008 at the age of 27 he became the youngest manager ever in the Argentine Primera División. By 2010 he was the Primera División's longest serving manager but in November the Lanús board asked him to resign after the club suffered four consecutive defeats. He left the club in 3rd position in the relegation table, with the two championship leaders Estudiantes and Vélez Sársfield the only teams to have accumulated more points than his side over the previous 90 games.
   
3. Estevan Soares (Ceará) - Under Estevan Soares Ceará got off to a flying start to the 2010 Brasileirão, accumulating 18 points in their first 8 games. Their form tailed off and after a six game winless run consisting of four draws and two defeats and he was sacked. When he left the club they were in 3rd position with 21 points. When his replacement Mário Sérgio was sacked  a month later they had slipped to 11th position and they eventually finished the season in 12th.
   

Competitor (other website) of the year

1. Universofutbol - The most comprehensive coverage of South American football, many other sites include league tables, goal scorers etc but let themselves down when it comes to the relegation tables (promedios) and minutiae like home and away records, managerial sackings, player appearances etc, Universofutbol doesn't. (en Español)
2. In Bed With Maradona - OK, I'm biased because they have published my work but if you haven't come across this website yet then you should take a look. It really does offer different perspectives on football across the world.
3. Guardian football - Their coverage of South American football may be dismal to non-existent but if you are interested in European football this is the place to go. They boast some of the best football writers, have a useful Stats Centre and the highly entertaining Knowledge and Classic Youtube weekly columns.

 Honourable mentions

• Hasta el Gol Siempre - Excellent coverage of Argentine football and creator of the brilliantly named Hand of Pod podcast.
• When Saturday Comes - You have no excuse for not knowing about WSC.
• Soccerway - Football stats galore.
• Canchallena - Excellent Argentine sports coverage. (en Español)
• World Football Columns - A website for aspiring football writers, why not get in touch and offer them your talents, you'll never know if you don't try.
• If this lot isn't enough for you try anything on this list.

Goal of the year

1. Patric for Avaí against Internacional. - A brilliant team goal direct from the kick off by Brazilian relegation strugglers Avaí against the Copa Libertadores champions Internacional.
2. Juan Manuel Martínez against Racing Club - In order to have a chance of winning the Apertura 2010 championship Vélez Sársfield needed to win their last game of the season and hope that Estudiantes would fail to win their game which was being played simultaneously. Martínez finished off a fine season with his 10th goal, this magnificent individual effort. Even though Estudiantes won their game and denied Vélez the championship, this was still a brilliant goal in a high pressure game which earned Martínez comparisons with Maradona and Messi.
3. Dayro Moreno for Once Caldas against São Paulo - He carries the ball from his own half, ghosts between two defenders as if they aren't even there and fires in an unstoppable shot, all from Colombian Steaua Bucharest flop Dayro Moreno.

Other awards

• Villain of the year - Uruguyan striker Luis Suárez, not for that hand ball against Ghana which was pure instinct, but  for his constant diving in the World Cup and for biting an opposition player in a league match later in the year.
• Reaction of the year - Luiz Felipe Scolari for his reaction after being hit in the head by a portable radio thrown from the Goiás stand.
• Controversy of the year - Universidad de Chile vs Alianza Lima - There was an offside in the buildup play, another two players standing offside and in the goalkeeper's line of sight for the shot, the linesman flagged but the referee overruled him and awarded the injury time goal that eliminated Alianza Lima from the 2010 Copa Libertadores.
• Humiliation of the year - Defensor Sporting Club 9-0 Sport Huancayo The Uruguayan side Defensor handed out a footballing humiliation to Peruvian side Sport Huancayo in the 2nd phase of the Copa Sudamericana.
• Fight of the year - Universidad San Martín vs León in the first leg of the Peruvian championship final.
• Brainmelt of the year - José Pedrozo for thinking that he could escape getting sent off for a second yellow card by strangling the referee.
• Miss of the year - Awarded to the Alianza Lima striker Juan Carlos Fernández for unbelievable hesitation in front of goal.
• Special overconfidence award - Neymar, for being the most outrageously talented 18 year old we have seen in years, his failed panenka penalty kick and this not so special back-heel.

Most exciting league in the World; a reply from Argentina.

I was motivated to write this article after reading this thought provoking article by Matt at CONMEBalls which begins "Yesterday while driving home I heard commentator Nigel Adderley on Radio 5 Live refer to the Barclays Premier League as the most exciting league in the world when commentating on the Fulham x Manchester City game. And after shaking my head about it all day I've decided to put it into words and defend my choice of league." He then goes on to give several compelling reasons why the Brazilian league is more entertaining than the Premier League.

I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of his article. The constant cheerleading from the mainstream media in the UK for the Best League in the World™ is getting really stale.

I'm going to give my view from a more Argentine perspective than Matt's Brazilian one. As regular visitors will know my focus is slightly towards the Argentine Primera División, although I do my best to write about both of South America's biggest leagues and also cover the pick of the rest of the action in South America too.

For me the Argentine league is the most exiting because it has been the most competitive league in world football for several years (8 different champions in the last 8 tournaments), had three final day deciders between the two championship rivals in the last 4 years including the epic decider between Vélez & Huracán last year, has what is widely acknowledged as the best atmosphere in world domestic football and produces some really exciting young talent (Agüero, Lavezzi, Tévez, Di Maria, Pastore, Defederico.....the production lines just keep producing).

Argentine games usually attract a
few more fans than this.

I saw Primera División new boys Quilmes play Godoy Cruz in an empty neutral stadium last week because of a lockout in response to Quilmes fan's violence and intimidation towards their own players after their 13 game winless streak at the start of the season. The banks and banks of empty seats behind the action reminded me of watching Brazilian football a bit. This is not a dig at the quality of the game in Brazil, just the stay at home fans. There was plenty of drama, controversy, high scoring games and quality goals just this weekend in Brazil.

I don't want to make this a debate about the relative qualities of Argentina and Brazilian football and I don't want to make this about Nigel Adderley's comment either. I didn't even hear him say it and to pick one man out amongst thousands of media types and millions of armchair pundits for having that distorted worldview would be pretty unfair.

The British media is like a cocoon around the Best League in the World™ and to a lesser extent European football, probably only because they have unavoidable exposure to it whenever English sides play in European competitions. Anything outside the seemingly impermeable bubbles around British and European football hardly gets a mention. The mainstream media don't seem to care unless it has some sensationalist value, like another Maradona feckup to gloat over, an Asian dude bollocksing up on the pitch twice in a week to become an internet sensation or another Brazilian wonder kid to speculate about.

This abject lack of decent coverage is why we are here, to fill in the gaps for real football fans who are sick and tired of the old Gerrard vs Lampard debate, the two dimensional analysis, the tired cliches and the endless bits of recycled speculation, platitudes and hearsay about the Best League in the World™ celebrity brigade.

I reckon this stagnation of mainstream English sports journalism goes hand in hand with the stagnation of English talent in the game. Former players are more than happy to claim their massive (and very low risk) salaries as pundits, commentators and columnists rather than take up coaching or management. Lets face it, it doesn't matter how often they mispronounce the players names, go off on irrelevant rambles, repeat the same cliches and bad puns week in week out and even make jokes about having done no research or preparation about the World Cup game that they are about to be paid to watch and pontificate about. They wont be sacked unless they do something really stupid like say something racist on air or run a dodgy ticket selling scam.

Paul Ince, credit due.

This is why I give a lot of credit to the ones that choose to pursue a career in the high risk business of management, rather than the comfort of a TV studio. Paul Ince for example, at least in some way he is giving something back to the game while he earns his pay, rather than just soaking up a lifetime salary airing unoriginal and predictable views on the Best League in the World™ gravy train like so many others.

Youth development is a joke in the Best League in the World™, as is the English game's ability to export players but these are subjects wide enough for another article or two. We hardly have any English managers capable of winning a major trophy anywhere in Europe, less than 40% of the Best League in the World™ players are actually English. We export a tiny percentage of top class players compared to Spain and less even than the notoriously insular Italians. To put that in perspective there are thousands of South Americans plying their trade across world football, with varying degrees of skill and success, There are also dozens of talented South American managers and coaches at all levels of the game across world football.

The problem in the English game is money, it seems that the richer the Best League in the World™ has become the more dominant the rich clubs have become. The Premier League has been won by one of three super rich clubs for 15 consecutive seasons, the FA Cup has been won by one of four super rich clubs in all but one of the last 15 seasons, the only exception Portsmouth, and it is now clear that they spent well beyond their means to achieve it. Even the commonly mocked League Cup has been dominated by the biggest spending clubs for the last 8 seasons, the only exception being Steve McClaren's Middlesbrough team in 2003. It is worth mentioning that Steve McClaren is the only English manager to win a major European league since Bobby Robson won the Portuguese league with Porto in 1996.

The most successful English manager of recent years, Steve McClaren
now plies his trade away from the Premier League money pit.

McClaren is commonly derided in England for his failure to qualify England for the European Championships in 2008, however his success at Twente last season suggests that he is more than capable of building a championship side out of hard working and determined underdogs. Perhaps he was just unsuited to the task of getting that same level of commitment out of a bunch of super rich, pampered and egotistical players with massively overblown senses of self entitlement?

I would like to clarify that this is not intended as an all out attack on the Best League in the World™ or the massive influx of foreigners in the English game. The Premier League features many of the best players in the World, there is no shortage of skill, drama and controversy but the whole thing is spoiled by the predictability that has arisen out of huge financial inequality.

Other sports have come up with solutions to prevent this kind of boring predictability, the American franchise sports have the surprisingly socialist style draft system that ensures an equitable distribution of the most talented youngsters amongst the franchised teams. Rugby league has a salary cap and strict quotas on imported talent.

In South American football equality is ensured by the parasitic European market, which will strip the key players out of any championship side as soon as the transfer window opens. This means that the previous season's best teams will have to rebuild the squad with a mixture of teenagers, journeyman footballers and older players returning from European football, giving everyone else a chance to have a tilt at the championship. One of the main benefits of this situation is the fact that the majority of clubs have a large contingent of youthful local players from their own academies playing in their first team. The very thing that created the bond between the local communities and their teams in the early history of the game, a community bond that is becoming increasingly rare in the money and results driven environment of English football.

I realise that my view on this subject is not particularly popular. I've has several people counter my assertion that the Argentine league has been the most competitive in the world over the last four years with an argument founded on their own misconception of the meaning of the word "competitive", having used it as a kind of lazy synonym for "best". They also rage when I bring up the number of South American players across world football as an example, displaying their own small minded ignorance and contempt with statements like "of course people from 3rd world scum holes like Argentina want to come and play in the magnificent English Best League in the World™." and "why would any right thinking Englishman want to play in any  bloody inferior foreign league anyway?"

Commonly held views about the superiority of the Best League in the World™ amongst the general public and pundit class are self reinforcing. The more the pundits say it, the more the public expect to hear it and the more the public hear it, the angrier they get when someone has the nuts to tell them that there are several more entertaining leagues across world football than the familiar predictability of the Premier League.

btw - Quilmes got their first win in 14 attempts in that game without the presence of their supporters.

What ever happened to? Ulises de La Cruz

De La Cruz became the first Ecuadorian to join a Scottish Premier League
side when he joined Hibs in 2001

In June 2001 Scottish side Hibernian signed Ecuadorian international defender Ulises de La Cruz from Ecuadorian side Barcelona Sporting Club. This transfer made Hibs manager Alex McLiesh the first manager to sign an Ecuadorian player for a Scottish Premier league club, he then signed De La Cruz's international team mate and international journeyman Eduardo Hurtado.

De La Cruz was born 8 February 1974 in the village of Piquiucho in the Valle del Chota. He made his professional debut for Deportivo Quito in 1991. He also had stints with Liga de Quito, Barcelona Sporting Club and Aucas in his homeland and with Cruzeiro in Brazil. He made his international debut in a 3-0 defeat to Japan on 28 May 1995. Before his move to the UK he had featured in three Copa América squads in 1997, 1999 and 2001.

One of the highlights of his career was netting a hat-trick in an incredible 7-0 win against Emelec in the 1998 Ecuadorian championship final.

De La Cruz settled into the first team, he scored both goals in the Edinburgh derby in October 2001 including the opening goal after only 36 seconds. The game ended 2-1 to Hibs and De La Cruz won praise from his manager, the fans and the press for his performances.

In December 2001 McLeish, the manager who had signed De La Cruz was poached by Rangers. McLeish's replacement Bobby Williamson sent Hurtado back to Ecuador and without his international team mate or the manager that signed him it became clear that De La Cruz's time with the club was limited.

De la Cruz playing for Aston Villa
against Manchester united in 2004.

During the summer of 2002 he played for Ecuador in their first ever World Cup, he featured in all three of the countries games including their first ever win in the World Cup finals, a 1-0 victory against Croatia in Yokohama. 

In 2002 De La Cruz established the British-Ecuadorian charity Friends of FundeCruz to which he donates around 10% of his wages to help fund children's nutrition, health, education and sports development. So far the charity has helped to build a water treatment plant, a medical centre and a community sports centre in his local province of Valle del Chota. He is good friends with Southampton flop Agustín Delgado who also has a charity with similar objectives in the same province.

Following his success at the World Cup  he was signed by Premier League side Aston Villa for a fee of £1.5 million. Over the next four seasons he made 109 appearances for the club and scored two goals, his first came in a 2-0 win against Charlton Athletic in September 2002 and the other came in a 3-0 win against Luton Town in a League Cup tie on 2 October 2002. During his time at Villa he played in his 4th Copa América tournament. De La Cruz eventually left the Villa on a free transfer in 2006 after falling out with manager David O'Leary.

Ulises playing against Poland in the 2006 World Cup.

He played in his second World Cup that summer, appearing in all three of the group games and in Ecuador's first ever 2nd round match against England.

His next club were newly promoted Reading who were playing their first season ever in the English top flight. De la Cruz featured as an occasional player for the team that not only survived in the top flight but finished in 8th position only one point shy of a UEFA Cup place. The following season Reading were relegated and De La Cruz was released from his contract. He made a total of 24 appearances for the Royals in all competition and bagged one goal for the club in a 3-1 win against Sheffield United.

During his time at Reading he became their first ever representative at the Copa América, his fifth outing in the tournament and his last of seven major international tournaments for his country. In 2007 Ulises came up against young Brazilian sensation Robinho, in a World Cup qualifier. He cannot be blamed for failing to deal with the situation given Robinho's brilliance before his slump in form at Manchester City.

Between 2008 and 2009 he spent time on trial with a number of different clubs, he spent some time at  Watford where he played 45 minutes of a friendly against Brentford. He also had trials at Coventry City.
 

In March 2009 he was given the opportunity to join up with the man who brought him to the UK back in 2001 when Birmingham manager Alex McLeish offered him a temporary contract. De La Cruz played only one game for Aston Villa's fierce local rivals, he was offered a 1 year contract buit decided to return to Ecuador to play regular first team football and improve his chances of returning to the Ecuador national team.

All in all Ulises de La Cruz played 8 seasons in British football making 164 appearances in all competitions and scoring 4 goals. He will never be remembered as one of the great exciting flair players but he was one of the very few South American players to last the course in British football. Many many exiting and highly talented South Americans have been beaten into submission by football in the UK, yet De La Cruz had what it takes to survive our game for 8 years.

After being released by Birmingham De La Cruz joined up with Liga de Quito; the most powerful team back in Ecuador. In July that year he was part of the team that annihilated Brazilian side Internacional 4-0 on aggregate in the final of the Recopa Sudamericana 2009 (South American Super Cup).

In 2009 De La Cruz was part of the Liga de Quito
side that won the Copa Sudamericana in 2009.

Later that year he won his second major international tournament with the club. He was part of the team that beat Brazilian side Fluminense 5-4 on aggregate to win the Copa Sudamericana 2009, although he was sent off in the second leg of the final after only 14 minutes.

De La Cruz had been frozen out of the Ecuador national team back in 2008 on 99 caps but he was recalled to the team in May 2010 for a couple of pre-World Cup warm up matches for Mexico and South Korea to put himself on the exclusive list of players with 100+ caps for their countries. With 101 caps and 6 goals he is currently Ecuador's 3rd most capped player behind Eduardo Hurtado and Alex Aguinaga.

In September 2008 he won his third major international title with Liga de Quito, he played in the 2nd leg of the Recopa Sudamericana in which they beat Alex Sabella's Estudiantes side which was captained by Juan Sebastián Verón to become only the 3rd side ever to retain the title after São Paulo of Brazil and Boca Juniors of Argentina.

De La Cruz still plays for Liga de Quito who are currently at the semi-final stage of their defence of their Copa Sudamericana championship and top of the Ecuadorian league. He continues his charity work and is a UNICEF ambassador. However he may be remembered back in the UK he will be rightly regarded as one of Ecuador's finest players, who was part of the most successful generation of Ecuadorian footballers ever to grace the game.

Part of the What ever happened to? series.