Some Background.

By: Mauro | July 29th, 2008

Sorry about the late start with this blog. I was on a much needed vacation the last five days and just returned this morning. The competition begins today with River Plate of Uruguay hosting Universidad Catolica of Chile (some of you might remember them from their participation in Group 5 of the Copa Libertadores). I’ll try to upload a preview of today’s match otherwise I’ll be sure to upload a shorty with online TV info and whatnot. Below you’ll find a basic explanation of this competition and a touch of what it has offered us in it’s short existence.

This competition was started in an effort to create a tournament that would firstly replace the Copa Merconorte and Copa Mercosur and the Copa Conmebol before that. Secondly, the federation needed a continental competition that ran during the second half of the calendar year since the Copa Libertadores only runs for the first half of the year. CONMEBOL seems dead set on having two competitions play out in the calendar year running consecutively. Prior to this competition CONMEBOL had tried to create a Pan-American competition but was unsuccessful so they settled for a South American only club tournament, which now actually includes clubs from Central and North America as well.

Only three years into the competition’s existence, team’s from CONCACAF were invited to participate making this the second CONMEBOL competition where teams from the MLS and Mexican League participated. MLS teams were a part of the Copa Merconorte and Mexican clubs had been participating in the Copa Libertadores in some way since 1998.

Many people think of this competition as the UEFA Cup of South America, which in terms of importance, it is. But do not make the mistake of believing that all of the teams are of lesser stature and the competition will be less fierce. While it is a less storied competition, mostly because it’s still so new, the participants are very similar. You still have champions from some countries in South America competing in this cup and while each country does manage it’s own entries in it’s own way, most teams are the best each country can offer should they not be from the top of their standings.

Here’s a quote from Wikipedia about the format for this competition:

Each national association is assigned a number of entries, usually determined by its league’s strength, and decides on its own selection criteria to fill those spots. These can include: direct invitation; performance over the first semester of the year; best teams from previous season that did not qualify for the Copa Libertadores (similar to UEFA Cup entries); a qualifying tournament previous to the competition, etc.

The tournament itself is played in two-legged knockout stages (there have also been cases of 3-team groups, with each team playing one home and one away game). In the first rounds of the competition the teams from the same country play against each other.

Because Brazil have 8 teams representing them in this competition and each country decides on their own how to seed for the competition, some teams that didn’t have the best local seasons will make an appearance. So you’ll have clubs like Atlético Paranaense from Brazil who finished in 12th place in their league and still qualified and also a team like Club Olimpia, who finished 4th in the Paraguayan league. But, in contrast, Brazil’s 2007 Brasileiro winner, Sao Paulo, has qualified for the competition as well as Chile’s best club of their 2008 Apertura, Ñublense.

In fact, only Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay are not sending their very best teams (meaning third and fourth place teams may represent).

Another note of interest, is that four time Costa Rican champion Club Deportivo Saprissa was not allowed to compete in this competition, as was their right. CONCACAF decided that they cannot compete in the Copa Sudamericana or the Copa Libertadores since they are expected by the federation to compete in the region’s upcoming Champions League tournament. Attending in their place is Club Deportivo Motagua from Honduras, making it three teams representing CONCACAF in this competition. Chivas de Guadalajara and San Luis are the representatives from Mexico.

In it’s short history, the Copa Sudamericana has been dominated by Argentine clubs with an interesting piece of trivia, no Brazilian club has won it, yet. Also, Cienciano of Peru won it in 2003, to add a little variety and Pachuca won it in 2006, making them the first non-South American club to win a CONMEBOL hosted tournament.

The tournament is played from July 29th and December the 3rd, taking a toll on the squad making it to the final. Arsenal de Sarandi, is the defending champion allowing Argentina to have seven teams in this year’s edition while they are usually represented by six teams.

As it turns out, Uruguay has just completed the matches that would decide which teams will represent that country. With that, the field is complete for the competition to begin today.

I have prepared a few notes about teams that will be participating in this competition who have signed or transferred players elsewhere. I’ll upload those as I feel they’ll be relevant.

In the meantime, feel free to check the CONMEBOL website for results and information and for those of you in need of a bracket to get your heads around the competition, here it is.