A friend of mine who doesn’t really follow the beautiful game once asked me if a team could get relegated and be league champions the same year. It’s like someone getting bowled on a wide ball in cricket, I said. Impossible!
Then of course I came across the Argentine Primera Division. Before I explain how a team can do both in a single year, let’s try and understand the league system in Argentina which, from what I have understood, was formulated by Nasa scientists that were aided assisted by Dr Stephen Hawking in their efforts.
Argentina’s top flight has two seasons in one calendar year — the Apertura or opening and the Clausura or closing. The seasons run from August to May and in either season each of the 20 teams play each other once and at the end of 19 games, there is a champion and over the course of the year, there are two.
The relegation system in Argentina is based on averages. At the end of each season, 2 teams with the worst average over the last three years are relegated to the Primera B Nacional and the 2 best teams of their aforementioned second division from that year are promoted.
Teams placed 17th and 18th in the averages table play a relegation playoff against the 4th and 3rd placed sides of the Primera B Nacional teams in a two legged tie decided on aggregate goals.
Therefore the number of teams promoted varies from 2 to 4 each year. A team that could very well have been relegated this year was Tigre, going into the last game only needing to better Arsenal’s result to be crowned Champions of the Clausura.
Tigre of course went on to maintain their ambition, which was to survive relegation and finish 16 th in the average table by drawing their game while Arsenal went on to become champions with Tigre the runners up.