Repechaje
Repechaje is from the Mexican football championship for an extra qualifying round to as a term Liguilla called final phase to achieve a championship. The process was later adopted for the soccer championship in Chile.
prehistory
Although the Mexican soccer championship is played in such a way that each participant plays once at home and once away against every other team, the champions are not determined on the basis of an overall table, but in subsequent play-offs, which are known in Mexico as liguilla. The Liguilla is the conclusion of both the preliminary round championship (Apertura) and the second round championship (Clausura), because in Mexico two champions are played every year. What makes the mode even more complicated and also distorts the actual seasonal performance is the division of the teams into fixed groups before the start of the season.
At the beginning of the 1975/76 season, the Primera División was divided into four groups. The respective group winners and runners-up reached the Liguilla, regardless of whether they were also the best eight teams in the overall table. It happened several times that a team with better points, which only finished third in their group, was eliminated, while in another group a team with fewer points took second place and qualified for the final round of the championship. An outstanding example of the athletically unfair qualification process can be found in the 1981/82 season, when Atlético Español finished second in Group 3 with just 33 points and qualified for the finals, while Cruz Azul only came third with 43 points of group 2 and left early.
Introduction of the repechaje in Mexico
In order to make the qualification mode of the soccer championship in Mexico fairer, the repechaje was introduced in the 1991/92 season. From now on, a third party in the group (and even fourth in the group with the appropriate number of points) had the opportunity to compete against the second in another group with the worst points and still qualify for the Liguilla.
At the first edition in the spring of 1992, Cruz Azul, third in Group 3 with 44 points, met America , second in Group 4 with 40 points, and prevailed with 0: 2 and 4: 0. The UAT Correcaminos team qualified for the Repechaje in third place (group 2 with 40 points) , but failed 2: 1 and 1: 4 against CD Veracruz , the second in group 1, who had also scored 40 points.
This procedure was maintained up to and including the 2003/04 season. The last game of this kind took place in the Clausura 2004, when Cruz Azul (second in Group 2 with 23 points) prevailed 2-1 and 2-0 against CF Pachuca (third in Group 1 with 26 points).
New mode in Mexico
With the division into only three groups of six teams each since the 2004/05 season, the repechaje was initially abolished again, since after the new mode all group winners, group runners-up and the two best group thirds were qualified; regardless of whether a fourth group has more points than a third group.
In the 2006/07 and 2007/08 seasons, the Repechaje celebrated a brief renaissance; because in these four competitions (Apertura 2006, Clausura 2007, Apertura 2007 and Clausura 2008) - regardless of the respective score - all group thirds as well as the best group fourth qualified for the repechaje and the winners of the two matches for the subsequent league. At that time, the Repechaje no longer served the sporting balance between a team with better points, which took an insufficient place in the table in their group, and a better placed team with fewer points in another group. Repechaje has been abolished since the 2008/09 season.
Introduction of the repechaje in Chile
Between 2002 and 2008, the soccer championship in Chile was changed according to the Mexican model. Up to and including the game and calendar year 2001, the champions were determined only once a year using an overall table, at that time the teams were divided into four groups and two champions were determined per year. In the first year (2002) the group third also qualified for the knockout round, while fourth placed better points were eliminated in any case. At the beginning of Apertura 2003, the repechaje procedure was also introduced in Chile for the first time. The first match of this kind took place between the Santiago Wanderers , fourth in Group 3 with 19 points, and Unión Española , third in Group 1 with 18 points. Unlike in Mexico, the decision was brought about in just one game on a neutral pitch and the Santiago Wanderers, who had better points in the preliminary round, even scored 2-2 to prevail, because in the event of a tie, the more points scored from the regular season were the decisive factor Gave progress. The story repeated itself in the Clausura 2003, when the group fourth Audax Italiano a 1: 1 was enough to prevail against the group third Puerto Montt . At that time there was still a round of 16 preceding the actual play-offs, which was played in just six games between the 12 qualified teams and in which only the two teams with the highest defeats were eliminated. The six winners and the two best losers qualified for the quarter-finals. Since the 2005 game year, the Liguilla and Repechaje have been played in a manner that was common in Mexico until the 2003/04 season. Only the two best teams in a group qualify and an additional qualifying round - the repechaje, which at that time was mostly played back and forth - only happened when a third or fourth placed team had more points than a group runner-up . Since the game year 2009, the groups have been abolished and the eight best teams in a competition qualify for the Apertura or Clausura League on the basis of the overall table of the corresponding tournament (i.e. a half season).
Explanations
- ↑ The Liguilla will be played in a play-off from the quarter-finals onwards and backwards in order to determine the respective champions of Apertura and Clausura.
- ↑ A team that has already been relegated based on the three-year table cannot qualify for the Liguilla. So happened in the Clausura 2006. The Dorados as the second best group third were disqualified as relegated for the finals and in their place Monarcas Morelia was allowed to participate as the worst group third in the Liguilla.
- ↑ Because the game year in Chile corresponds to the calendar year, unlike in Mexico, the Apertura marks the season in the first half of a calendar year and the Clausura the season in the second half of the year