2022 Copa Libertadores + Copa Sudamericana

[danielmak]

The new season started last night. I will likely only have this post. I subscribed to a streaming option so I could get BeIN to watch Africa Cup of Nations. That subscription ended this morning, which mean I was able to watch the first game of the first round qualification.

Montevideo City Torque v. Barcelona (1-1). Montevideo is one of the City group football clubs. Historically this Uruguayan league has been a two-team league (Nacional and Penarol) with some other clubs claiming a rare title here and there. Montevideo City Torque has acquired some good young talent so we will see if and for how long this club might surpass some of those perennial third and fourth place teams like Danubio and Defensor Sporting. Then we have Barcelona a giant in Ecuador, who were semi-finalists in the 2021 Libertadores but I assume not deep enough to sustain that run and claim a spot high enough in the domestic league to enter this year's competition at the group stage.

The match was pretty good. The Barcelona bench melted down at the end and faced a few ejections that might impact the return leg next Tuesday.

Again, that's probably all I will have to contribute this year since it will be unlikely that I watch any other games. BeIN is a garbage channel run by people who do the opposite of what makes sense. Plus my neutral TV viewing has been focused on watching English football, which works better for my general life schedule.

[Sam]

From my limited understanding of the situation with Torque (you'll forgive this Manchester United fan if I stick to their original, pre-takeover, name) and indeed of Uruguayan football, it'll be interesting to see how long they can keep up this newly almost-relevant position. I've been to Uruguay enough and spoken to enough Uruguayans to know that only Peñarol and Nacional are ever truly relevant. Torque were taken over by the City group a good few years ago and it's taken them this long – or almost; I think they've been in the Sudamericana once or twice recently – to get onto a continental stage. Of course the long-term plan for them won't be to win or even challenge for things but to provide a stopping-off point for South American youngsters – the City group's very own version of Deportivo Maldonado, if you will.

Haven't caught any of the qualifiers yet, and probably won't do, but looking forward to the groups kicking off obviously. And it's very clear from their January transfer window that River Plate are going all out to try to win it back. Much of that might depend on whether Man City decide to take Julián Álvarez after the quarter-finals – the deal apparently has a clause allowing them to do so if they give River another €1.5m – or allow him to stay until the end of the year. Of course, the more likely River look to go all the way, the more likely it is that City take him early ...

[cantagalo]

Managed to watch my first Libertadores match this year with Fluminense beating Millonários 2-1.

The process of team-building in Brazil is interesting to say the least. Fluminense have one of the best youth systems going but alongside the youngsters, in last night's starting line-up, playing at altitude in Bogota, there were five players over the age of 34 including Fábio (41), Fred (38) and Felipe Melo (38).. Fred pulled up injured when through on goal and Felipe Melo as usual had to be subbed before he got himself sent off. They were replaced by a couple of 34 year-old subs in Cano and Ganso (yes, that one).

Anyway, Flu won it coming back from a goal down having been helped by a red card for the Colombian goalscorer Sosa and a penalty save by Fábio (41). They should complete the job in Rio next week. Colombian football seems to be going through a real slump at both club and national level - does anyone here have an explanation for this?

[danielmak]

Colombian football seems to be going through a real slump at both club and national level - does anyone here have an explanation for this?

I assume we can see historical waves of success and downturns for every country besides Venezuela that is not Argentina or Brazil.

I radically shifted how I was spending my satellite/streaming money when COVID hit to shift so I could watch more English football. That means my answer is only speculative. There was a period about 5-6 years ago when Colombia was very strong. Atletico Nacional was on course to do a continental double had the Chape disaster not happened. Chape could have won the Sudamericana but I doubt it. Santa Fe won the Sudamericana. Junior made it to the Sudamericana final. And whoever was in the Libertadores with Atletico Nacional was making it to the knockout rounds. But I think there is a cycle for other countries and they just take turns. It's like German football: which team will push Bayern a little for a decade before another team replaces that first team. In South America, which country will emerge to offer some minor challenge to the Brazil/Argentina duopoly? Colombia was that country 5-6 years ago. Maybe Chile just before that. Maybe Ecuador just after with Ind Del Valle having a nice run and Barcelona making a few semi-finals in the Libertadores.

I assume the protests in Colombia last year emerged as all major protests do: political economy. So, if the economy is not booming and the government is becoming more oppressive, that will affect the economy of football.

CONMEBOL's expansion of the Libertadores and Sudamericana in very specific ways has done no favors to the other countries outside that Brazil/Argentina duopoly: 6 berths from Argentina in the Libertadores and 7 + 2 berths for Brazil. Granted the +2 is for champions of last year's Libertadores and Sudamericana but basically every single team from Brazil's 2021 top flight is in a CONEMBOL competition. That means more money for those teams on top of the fact that those leagues are better off financially than the others in the continent. Also, at the level of statistical odds, CONMEBOL has increased the chances for Brazillian and Argentine clubs to get to the finals of the two competitions. Every other country gets 4 berths into the Libertadores. Until CONMEBOL does 4 berths across the board (which it won't), every other country is disadvantaged.

Short version: local economy plus CONMEBOL's system has contributed to Colombia's downturn.

[ursus arctos]

Performance of Libertadores finalists by nation (wins/losses)

Argentina 25 12
Brazil 21 17
Uruguay 8 8
Colombia 3 7
Paraguay 3 5
Chile 1 5
Ecuador 1 3
Mexico 0 3
Peru 0 2

Performance of Sudamericana finalists by nation (wins/losses)

Argentina 9 6
Brazil 5 5
Ecuador 2 1
Colombia 1 4
Mexico 1 2
Chile 1 1
Peru 1 0
Bolivia 0 1

Argentina and Brazil are in a different league in terms of historical success. Uruguay is alone in third, with Colombia fourth. Any success by the other members of CONMEBOL is at best episodic and often due to a single dominant club (e.g., Olimpia have all of Paraguay's titles and 7 of its 8 appearances in finals).

[danielmak]

I don't have time right now to look through to see when CONMEBOL started offering more berths to Argentina and Brazil. But there are two important historical shifts that also contributed to the balance of power in the Libertadores.

(1) During the early years, Brazillian clubs were more focused on the state championships. You can see a turning point in 1992.

(2) 2000 shifted to drawing clubs into random (seeded?) groups. Before that, groups were tied to country. For example, Argentina and Peru were in the same group, Colombia and Chile in another group, etc. The groups rotated each year. During many years, the previous champion didn't play until the knockout rounds. That move usually made it very difficult to end up with two teams from the same country in a final. Combine this with (1) and historically the final was an Argentine club versus a club from somewhere other than Brazil. I don't know the nuances of the leagues and the countries but 1987-1991 was the high water mark for other countries: Uruguay in 87 (Penarol) and 88 (Nacional), Colombia in 89 (Atl Nacional), Paraguay in 90 (Olimpia), and Chile in 91 (Colo Colo). That's pretty cool for a neutral.

The groupings obviously artificially inflated opportunities for clubs outside Argentina and Brazil, since I assume most years would have been two Argentine sides had random grouping occurred. But I firmly believe as I posted earlier today that the uneven berths are artificially inflating the success of Argentina and Brazil. As a neutral, I'd prefer the old system or at least a system where every country earns 4 and then the champs from the previous year + Sudamericana enter (depending on how that math works out).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tadores_finals

[danielmak]

I know I'm beating a dead horse here but just looked at the 2021 Brazil table. It's a 20-team league. Fifteen teams qualify for the continental competitions. Only 1 non-relegated team is left out. And the four relegated sides did not qualify. That's insanity. Almost the entire league is competing for the two trophies. I'm actually shocked a Brazilian side doesn't win both every single year with those percentages.

[cantagalo]

Yes, two extra places were made available by the qualification of Palmeiras and Athletico-PR by virtue of winning the 2021 Libertadores and Sul-americana. But 15 teams in continental competitions is ridiculous. Apart from the relegated teams everyone will be happy and Juventude will be delighted to have avoided relegation.

Last night we even saw América Mineiro make their Libertadores debut. They alternate regularly between Série A and B and this would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But paradoxically this doesn't mean Brazilian football is becoming more democratic. The real power, financially and on the pitch, is now concentrated in three clubs - Palmeiras, Atlético Mineiro and Flamengo - and these are the only teams that have a decent chance of winning Série A and/or the Libertadores. Until a few years ago you could have made a genuine case for any one of 9 or 10 clubs winning Série A.

An interesting recent development is that mainly American foreign investors are starting to put significant money into some Brazilian clubs. They have focussed on the fallen giants, financial basket cases with significant fan bases. Cruzeiro and Vasco both face another embarrassing season in Série B and Botafogo have just regained their Série A status. This may have an impact over the next few years.

[Sam]

A couple of minor additions/corrections, danielmak: the defending champions getting a bye was, I think, not something that happened for all that long, but it wasn't just to the knockout stage but to the semis. A large part of Independiente's seven Copas is thanks to this. And two finalists from the same country has only been possible since 2005 (God, was it that long ago?! I am old), as before then if two teams from the same country reached the semis, the seedings-based knockout 'tree' was chucked in the bin and the semis redrawn to put them together in the semis and avoid an all-one-nation final. São Paulo and (the club that were then called) Atlético Paranaense met in the final the very year they did away with that rule, if I'm remembering rightly. There have been four more since: Inter and São Paulo the very next year, the two all-Brazilian finals of last year and the year before, and the only Libertadores final anyone really cares about back in 2018. I am of course not counting Simón Bolívar's long dreamed-of all-Gran-Colombia final in 2016 (Atlético Nacional v Independiente Del Valle).

Also, re: your comment on Colombia's economy having an effect on their football, Argentina has been in almost continuous recession since the turn of the century, and it's not been a problem for them. They even got the national team into the actual World Cup final eight years ago. But Colombian football's long been a mystery in this respect. Argentina and Uruguay obviously have the standing they do in no small part due to the head start they gave themselves by adopting the game so early and enthusiastically, and La Violencia obviously stunted Colombia's development more than even most of the rest of the continent during the twentieth century. But Colombia's far less centralised than Argentina and has a larger population. The fact that Argentina was one of the richest countries on the planet back at the end of World War II surely isn't still having an effect on things now ... is it? The tentacles of history are very long, I suppose. Maybe football really is just in the blood. It's the only way of explaining Uruguay.

[danielmak]

Sam You will know the nuances of the political economy of South America far better than I will, but it seems like general economic crisis and football economic crisis is going to be relative. If we stretch to the Americas more generally, the poverty in Mexico is far greater than the US, but Mexico is still rich (in general and in football dollars) compared with the countries south of Mexico. In the same vein, Argentina might be in a perpetual state of crisis since the financial crisis began, but even with that crisis I assume Argentina's everyday economy and football economy is stronger than every other country in South America except Brazil.

Of course, there is also a larger issue of football infrastructure. Colombia was rolling at a national team level around the same time the club teams were doing well in the continental club cups.The national team has seemingly declined around the same time the clubs started to collapse. There should be enough talent in Colombia to overcome potential problems with organizational structure, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[ursus arctos]

Per capita GDP is far from a perfect measure of "wealth", but

[Wouter D]

So the World Bank thinks Belize is in South America...

[ursus arctos]

I think that is likely Statista.

The World Bank data covers virtually every country in the world.

[Sam]

I always wonder with stuff like that GDP chart whether they're using the official, government-sanctioned exchange rate or the real-world exchange rate to convert Argentine pesos to dollars. Officially one dollar is worth 106 pesos right now, but the only people here who are able to buy dollars at that rate are government officials, and on any open exchange outside Argentina you'll get more like 207 pesos to the dollar, and any open casa de cambio here will sell you dollars on the basis that that's all the peso is worth (Western Union will give me 269 pesos to the pound if I make my monthly cash transfer from the UK right now, but given the peso fell a bit just today I'll leave it until next week to allow their rate to catch up with reality). I tend to assume they're using the official rate, since that's the one you'll get if you type 'USD to ARS' into Google. It makes quite a difference. (It's also, obviously, very much worth being aware of if any of you are planning a trip down here ...)

[EDIT: Hadn't realised I could zoom in on ursus' chart to actually see the numbers. Looks to me like they are indeed using the official exchange rate.]

[Sam]

Sam You will know the nuances of the political economy of South America far better than I will, but it seems like general economic crisis and football economic crisis is going to be relative. If we stretch to the Americas more generally, the poverty in Mexico is far greater than the US, but Mexico is still rich (in general and in football dollars) compared with the countries south of Mexico. In the same vein, Argentina might be in a perpetual state of crisis since the financial crisis began, but even with that crisis I assume Argentina's everyday economy and football economy is stronger than every other country in South America except Brazil.

Of course, there is also a larger issue of football infrastructure. Colombia was rolling at a national team level around the same time the club teams were doing well in the continental club cups.The national team has seemingly declined around the same time the clubs started to collapse. There should be enough talent in Colombia to overcome potential problems with organizational structure, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm not sure how we're measuring 'strength' exactly, but Argentina's economy definitely isn't as stable as Uruguay's, and from what I've read and heard Chile is a good sight more stable as well. Obviously those two countries are largely the exceptions and for the rest of the continent (Argentina included, and Brazil excepted because its economy is so massively much larger than everyone else's) we're comparing basket cases with basket cases, but partly for that reason it's still surprising that Colombia can't seem to make its demography translate into better footballing standing.

[ursus arctos]

International economic statistics are usually calculated on the basis of official rates because a) they are often compiled by inter-governmental organisations and b) unofficial rates differ at any given time (as Sam knows very well) and time series are often not available.

[danielmak]

I'm not sure how we're measuring 'strength' exactly, but Argentina's economy definitely isn't as stable as Uruguay's, and from what I've read and heard Chile is a good sight more stable as well.

From a footballing standpoint, we could focus on which leagues bring in which players. For example, Daniele De Rosi wasn't going to play for Ind Santa Fe or Colo Colo. Boca somehow had enough money to pay him and Tevez at the same time. Brazilian clubs can get sponsors to pay aging stars like Robinho and Ronaldinho when they were still playing, but Atl Nacional couldn't land those same guys. Now, I'm not saying any of those moves were good moves per se but the money was there. And for younger talent, Mexican clubs can afford to pay the best talent from the Americas as long as the Mexican clubs aren't competing with the big 4 European leagues.

Obviously, all of this talk about who can afford what is both linked to and divorced from football infrastructure. cantagalo's comment above about Flu being a combination of some of the best young talent blended with guys who are past their best time highlights how money and football infrastructure can work together: pay the old guys because they are names and are (hopefully) professional to help mentor the young players. Use the eye for talent and skill with development to bring along the young guys.

[Sam]

I don't think Boca spent all that much money on De Rossi, compared with what he'd have got elsewhere: when he signed his contract it was reported as US$1m for twelve months (of which he ended up only staying for six due to personal stuff and, frankly, barely ever playing for them). He genuinely seemed to be coming for the experience of playing in a country whose footballing culture he'd always been fascinated by. I think he made the point when he arrived that if he'd been after cash he had offers from other places. A bit like David Trezeguet, who joined River so he could play for the club he supported as a kid (having spent his childhood in Buenos Aires) and help them out of the second division.

But Argentina – the big clubs here at any rate – certainly have the advantage of being the established shop window, which means they can attract players from the rest of the continent who are hoping to make the jump to Europe (or, increasingly, MLS). Boca and River are the only clubs here who could even get close to paying a million dollars a year, and even they'll only do so for someone huge (Tevez and before him Riquelme – who played the last year of his contract for free when he returned – were the last players Boca gave anything like that money to).

[jason voorhees]

Olimpia had a great first half with 1:1 at Fluminense, but dopey defensive mistakes in the 2nd tiempo led to a 3:1 loss last week.

In the Defensores del Chaco, they need at least a 2 goal win right now. 0-0 in the 5th'.

Estudiantes goes through to the group stage with a 2-nil aggregate vs Everton of Viña del Mar, Chile.

America MG of wins 0-0 against Barcelona of Quayaquil, Ecuador.

U Catolica and THINE STRONGEST are at 0-0 with the 2nd leg in La Paz tomorrow night.

[jason voorhees]

Stranger things hath happened and all of that, but I'll be REAL surprised if Olimpia can pull this out.

They're good, much less stillborn and constipated than the past few years, but they don't look like the could score against Flu if they played 900 minutes.

Felipe Melo is absolutely runnin' tings in the back.

0-0 26'

[jason voorhees]

Stranger things areth happening....I was 863 minutes off.

Absolutely gorgeous goal after some great heart and hustle by the always-excellent Sergio Olálvaro to keep a ball in, leading to a spectacular cross and double-header for the 1-nil lead in the 37th.

Dalé Dalé Dalé O

[jason voorhees]

1-0 (2-3) 1st Half.

[jason voorhees]

Flu with a shit ton of time wasting that leads to a dumb pass, leading to a red for Nino when he takes down Recalde.

Flu with 10 for the last 10

[jason voorhees]

DOS A CERO

[jason voorhees]

Penales.

3:3