I’ve never said the situation with Apertura winners is anything other than ridiculous though, so it’s good that AFA are (far, far too late) putting it right now.

Also, don’t forget the added time indicated, according to the Laws of the Game, is only a minimum… still, cruel to Racing all the same…

I understand what you say about the time between winning the league and playing in the Copa Libertadores, but let’s face it, be it nearly 2 years or just over a year it’s simply too much for these frantic days in which you can’t be sure you’ll have all your 11 starters for next week, isn’t it?

Take Europe, for example, and see that the teams qualified for the Champions League know their fate by April, early May and they start playing later in the same calendar year. Some even play the qualifying stages and start their continental campaign only 3 or 4 months after reaching that stage.

And just how cruel is destiny with Racing? Olimpo scored in the 5th minute of added time against San Lorenzo, when Mr. Laverni had only added 4!

Now we risk direct relegation! We need to win at least one of the two remaining matches to guarantee Gimnasia de Jujuy can’t get more points than Racing. But if we win one and lose the other and Jujuy win both, then we’ll have to play a tie-breaker to decide who survives (goes to the Promoción) and who gets relegated.

Another sad Sunday (week) for me!

By the time I saw the comments you’d already corrected / updated your reply which got held due to the link, so I’ve just deleted it since it’s basically the same minus the correction anyway. Hope that’s OK.

Tretman, three championships is ONE AND A HALF SEASONS, not three seasons! There are two championships per season in Argentina, remember. The situation with three championships being used for Libertadores qualification will only be happening for the Libertadores THIS YEAR, because from next year on the two championships in each calendar year will qualify teams directly for the following year’s Libertadores.

Also Seba, just one thing, but the champions of the Apertura don’t wait ‘nearly two years’, they wait just over one year. There’s a difference of ten months between the two!

At the moment: Estudiantes, San Lorenzo, Argentinos Jrs. and Independiente (but Velez have a chance to surpass Independiente if they win tonight against Gimnasia at La Plata).

And Matthew, regarding Colón v River…I was watching and I couldn’t believe River were reduced to 10 men in only 19 minutes. I thought: “Typical Racing Club luck!”. But what a way to win it and keep us in contention!

So glad with the result. Simeone, a Racing fan, is surely a man that it’s two-times happy!

Gracias River!

So you’ll have to ignore that table I pasted above and check this one:

Apertura 2007

Table:

1.Lanús 19 11 5 3 34-21 38 Champions [Buenos Aires]
2.Tigre (Victoria) 19 10 4 5 28-20 34 [Buenos Aires]
3.Banfield 19 10 2 7 22-21 32 [Buenos Aires]
4.Boca Juniors 19 9 4 6 32-18 31 [Buenos Aires]
5.Argentinos Juniors 19 9 4 6 29-20 31 [Buenos Aires]
6.Estudiantes (La Plata) 19 8 6 5 27-19 30 [Buenos Aires]
7.Huracán (Buenos Aires) 19 8 6 5 24-22 30 [Buenos Aires]
8.San Lorenzo de Almagro 19 8 5 6 29-27 29 [Buenos Aires]
9.Independiente 19 8 4 7 33-23 28 [Buenos Aires]
10.Vélez Sarsfield 19 8 3 8 25-25 27 [Buenos Aires]
11.Newell’s Old Boys (Rosario) 19 8 3 8 16-22 27 [Santa Fe]
12.Arsenal 19 7 5 7 19-24 26 [Buenos Aires]
13.Racing Club 19 7 4 8 23-24 25 [Buenos Aires]
14.River Plate 19 6 5 8 31-33 23 [Buenos Aires]
15.Colón 19 6 4 9 19-22 22 [Santa Fe]
16.Olimpo (Bahía Blanca) 19 6 4 9 18-24 22 [Buenos Aires]
17.Gimnasia y Esgrima (Jujuy) 19 5 5 9 22-31 20 [Jujuy]
18.Gimnasia y Esgrima (La Plata) 19 5 4 10 15-27 19 [Buenos Aires]
19.San Martín (San Juan) 19 5 3 11 18-29 18 [San Juan]
20.Rosario Central 19 2 8 9 21-33 14 [Santa Fe]

Also, I forgot one important bit of info.

The Copa Libertadores qualification will consider those average points to determine some of the qualified teams. There are other ways to qualify and there’s one team already qualified: Lanús (as Apertura 2007 champions).

It’s quite logical, coming from the AFA, because the 2007 champions will qualify for the 2009 Copa Libertadores! Yeah…you are right…almost 2 years after winning the league they go and represent Argentina in South America! Let’s see how many of the players from that league-winning team will remain at Lanús when the Libertadores come. Lautaro Acosta is already off to Sevilla and you can be sure he won’t be the last one to leave.

So…to sum up all this mess I made in the last few messages.

The champions of Apertura 2007 (Lanús), Clausura 2008 and the future Apertura 2008 will qualify directly. The other two teams will be those with most points combined in those three tournaments.

Sorry for the confussion and thank you AFA! I couldn’t possibly hate you more!

And allow me to say: WHAT A RIDICULOUS SYSTEM! AFA, YOU ARE HAVING A LAUGH!