Argentine Football - Liga Profesional y Seleccion

[Punchanello]

Thought I would start a thread for anyone interested and the trainspotters.

The 2026 domestic season has been weird (weirder than most anyway) with what looks like an ad-hoc, arbitrary and unnecessarily complex set of new rules. As simply as I can describe it, the new season format is -

• Two tournaments: Apertura and Clausura.
• In each tournament:
  • The 30 teams are split into 2 groups of 15.
  • Teams play every other team in their group once.
  • Each team also plays 2 cross-group matches.
  • The top 8 teams from each group qualify for the Round of 16.
  • The knockout rounds (Round of 16, Quarter-finals, Semi-finals and Final) are all single-match eliminations.

• The Apertura winner qualifies for the 2027 Copa Libertadores as Argentina 1.
• The Clausura winner qualifies as Argentina 2.
• Other international places are decided by the overall season standings.

League title

• A new title, “League Champion”, is awarded to the team with the most points across the entire season.

Relegation

• Two teamsare relegated:
  • One based on the relegation coefficient system.
  • One for finishing last in the overall season table.

 

[Punchanello]

Why is it like this? Like everything in Argentina, it's some combination of politics, self-interest and money.

The positive angle is that this is about -

• Expanding the top tier beyond a Buenos Aires dominated league and into the provinces (30 teams)
• Offering opportunity for smaller clubs to be more financially viable and competitive for longer across the season

The negative POV is -

• AFA consolidating power
• Favouritism towards BA clubs
• A battle between the traditional member driven club model (this is still the dominant model in Argentina) and a desire for greater corporatisation of the game.

Everyone except AFA and the club executives seem to think that it's shit.

 

[Punchanello]

Match day 1 Clausura highlights!