Spanish languaged south american countries seem to be very uninformed about brazilian tournaments and teams, and channels like ESPN doesnt cover brazilian league the same way it covers leagues from other south american countryes. The weird is that the opposite happens as well. Brazilian press really dont cover other south american tournaments and we are much more informed here in brazil about european tournaments than the south american ones (brazilians hardly give any credit to copa sulamericana). We know very little about the argentinean league and thats all. Is it because the language difference or is it another problem?
brazilean leagues really suck there teams are mostly mediocre with the strongest ones not being a real match for true south american teams and there organization is horendous they havent won a international competition for 7 years and i really dont think any of us cares what they do
ILC check your facts and stop flaming good question i personally still dont understand how brazil alocates their copa libertadores spots in peru the argentinian league is reported on much more than the brazilian league
this is a good place to learn about other leagues of suramerica: the tv moguls do not care for the the reason: ESPN is not even from suramerica, they do not recognize the needs, they feel that TWO markets are very diferent, they see that Brazil is large enuf to keep brazileros busy with thier own local tourneys. we need a network of soccer like Goltv...that moves from country to country selling soccer to all. I never understood the championship in brazil, can you explain in 4 lines? how many teams and how many leagues? or champions in one given yr? what I know: chile: 18 teams (one second division), relegation? colombia: 18 teams, 2 champs, one second division and relegation yearly peru: 12 teams and one 2nd division ecuador: 10 teams - one champion from a hexagonal? venezuela: 10 teams - one champ bolivia: 12 teams, one champion argentina: very entretaining, 2 champs per yr, 16 teams? and relegation (but only 4 teams are REAL contenders every time) Uruguay and paraguay (2 main teams in each country and does it!)
Venezuela: 10 teams, 2 championship games between apertura and clausura winner. Two strong teams (Tachira, Caracas) about 3-4 teams are OK and the others are crappy (Carabobo that lost vs Cienciano is in the list of crappy teams) I read somewhere that the problem with the brazilian league is that it was too confusing to cover. I read that a couple of years ago the brazilian league changed to a european format. I still don't understand the: Mineirao, Paulista and all those tournaments.
argentina has 20 teams, but the reason I think that Brazil and S.A are islands within the same continent, more than the language, is the way the Brazilian championship is set up, its like 25 teams, with like 40 different cups through out the year, and I really dont' understand it, I don't think media outside of Brazil understands it.....in colombia all they report on are the colombian players in the different teams down there, and the Argentine league gets the biggest coverage outside our own......
the peruvian set up is the following 14 teams in division one 2 tournaments both home and away torneo apertura and clausura 52 games all up the teams can be divided as the top(4) - cristal, universitario, alianza lima, cienciano the middle(6) - alianza atletico, sport boys, cesar vallejo, union huaral, melgar, bolognesi the bottom(4) - atletico universidad, san martin, wanka, grau-estudiantes occasionally one team might go down or up but it dosnt last long cienciano is an exception since they have made it to the top group and stayed there then we have the second division which is composed of teams from lima and the copa peru which is composed of teams from the provinces in the past the copa peru champ would go straight up to the first division and the segunda division champ would play a playoff with the second worst team in the first division i believe this has changed so im not sure how it works
OK, Ill try to explain our tournaments throgout the year. Its not that complicated: The beginning of the year is the beginning of our season, when we have the State championships (february - march). The Paulista championship (São Paulo, Santos, Palmeiras, Corinthians, São Caetano and other small teams), the Carioca championship (Flamengo, Vasco, Fluminense, Botafogo and other small teams), the Mineiro championship (Atletico Mineiro, Cruzeiro and other small teams) etc, etc. They exist because of the huge size our country has, in the 50s, 60s, it was very hard, for example, for one team from the south to travel to the north for just one game, and vice versa, so it was hard for us to have a tournament with all the teams from brazil. The brazilian championship with all of our teams only started in 1971, but the state championships became so traditional that they were kept till nowadays. Its an awesome tournament for the state rivals, and also a good preparation for the season. Then we have the libertadores for the teams who qualified for it, and for those who didnt qualify we have the Copa do Brasil, whose champion automatically qualifies for the next year libertadores. Is like a Copa Del Rei, with a huge mass of teams, from first, second and third division, playin in playoffs format. So, in brasil, the 5 teams who qualifies for the libertadores are: - Copa do Brasil champion - 4 first teams from the brazilian league Now, the sinistral brazilian championship! We have 24 teams in the first division, and, if Im not mistaken, we have 6 divisions. Till 2002 it was played in a playoff format: Everybody plays everybody, the first 8 teams play each other in playoffs. The first play the eighth, the second plays the seventh, the third plays the sixth, etc. In the final we have the champion. But in 2003 it began to be played in an european format (april - december). Everybody vs everybody, in away and home matches. First is the champion, 4 first teams go to libertadores, 4 last are relegated. But in the second division, only the first two go to the first division. With it our federation intends to have just 20 teams in the first division in 2 years. I think thats it. Any doubts about something?
this was just like it is in Colombia now, but some directives want to change the format to the "euro" system too, because last year, just like this year, América de Cali was leading in everything up to the final 8 playoffs, then DIM won the playoffs and they became champs, some say is more "fair" to the team that's been leading the league during the regual season, but if they are that good, why can't they do the same in the playoffs. The thing I don't like about the "euro" system, is that only the "stronger" meaning more financially wealthy teams, tend to always win the league, kinda like Arsenal is doing in England right now, I've lost interest for that league, its cool for bragging rights that a team goes 49 games unbeaten, but it takes the fun out of watching the match, cause you already know that they have a 99% chance of winning. In Colombia, if you make it to the final 8, and work you ass off as a team, anybody can be champ, and that's where my theory comes in, if you've been teh stronger team all season, then you should win the final 8 easily, but it dosn't always happen like that, and I like that, I hope our directives don't change the format.
question for brazileros: the winner of carioca league, or paulista or Mineirao leagues, do they go to copa Libertadores, or they just do a play off to find the champ of Copa do Brasil? that is played for 5 months? early in the year the last 6 months is for first division, 24team round robin typo of championship? still lost
The State championships dont lead the champion team to any important competition, and has nothing to do with libertadores or Copa do Brasil, once Brazil has 26 States, and 26 different champions a year. It is more like an opening season competition, played for 2 months (usually february-march). In the past, before we have the brazilian league (1971), it was considered a very prestigious title, but nowadays is more like a preparation for the season. Its a fun tournament, nonethless.
jan-feb every yr is preseason - that is all I Understand. and the rest of the year? 10 months of competition in how many tournaments? relegation?
no hablaste del gaucho....Internacional contra gremio...RIo grande del sur la mayor rivalidad del Brasil
Due to the size of the country and the distances between the States, it was very difficult to implement a national league throughout different regions. When the Campeonato Brasileiro was created, in 1971, there were more than 20 state leagues established, most of them founded in the first decades of the 20th century. Natural rivalries were born from each team being in the same State Championship, many of these by nothing more than geography. Along the years, regional tournaments were created and, with them, new rivalries, eventually evolving to national ones, specially in the Campeonato Brasileiro. State Championships still exist and provide a unique opportunity for many teams to play and win. In fact, they are more important than the second and the third national leagues. So, we have: CAMPEONATO BRASILEIRO da Série A, called Brasileirão (The Great Brazilian Championship), with 24 teams in this season, 22 in 2005 and 20 in 2006. And we have Série B and Série C. COPA DO BRASIL - with teams from all over the country playing "kill or die" for a spot in the Libertadores Cup. This Copa is like The Cup of England or Copa del Rey. CAMPEONATOS ESTADUAIS - State Championships. Every State is like a country inside the country with its own championship. There are 26 States and the Federal District. So, we have 27 State Championships. São Paulo alone has 36 million people, Rio de Janeiro has 12 million, Minas Gerais has 18 million, Paraná has 10 million, Rio Grande do Sul has 10,5 million and so on. Every State deserves its own Championship. The big teams (in millions of supporters): 1º Flamengo - 33 2º Corinthians - 24 3º São Paulo - 13,3 4º Palmeiras - 11,8 5º Vasco - 10 6° Cruzeiro - 6,7 7º Grêmio - 6,4 (nobody will stop them in their way to the 2º Division!!!) 8º Santos - 4,9 9º Internacional - 4,7 10º Atlético-MG - 3,6 (MG stands for Minas Gerais) 11º Botafogo - 2,7 12º Fluminense - 2,2 13º Bahia - 2 (playing in the 2º Division right now) 14º Sport - 1,8 (playing in the 2º Division right now) 15º Vitória - 1,8 (playing in the 2º Division right now) 16º Remo - 1,3 (playing in the 2º Division right now) 17º Paysandu - 1,1 18º Atlético-PR - 0,9 (PR stands for Paraná) 19º Santa Cruz - 0,9 (playing in the 2º Division right now) 20º Seleção Brasileira - 0,7 (Many Brazilians are only Seleção fans) 21º Coritiba - 0,5 22º Juventude - 0,4 By the way, according to the same poll, 22% of the Brazilians don't like football. They were 28% six years ago.
Wow, I thought Flamengo and Flu were the biggest in Rio, and Sao Paulo and Palmeiras were the biggest in Sao Paulo. Where did you get this numbers from? is it from a poll of all brazilians? and how do you know how accurate it is?
Corinthians in Brazil is like Schalke04 in Germany: big number of supporters due to the humble origins, but not very representative in international competitions. Both palmeiras and sao paulo have more representativeness around the world. I believe this numbers come from the last research (said to be the biggest in history) about the brazilian teams supporters, made by a very important sports newspaper in Brazil (Lance). I believe this numbers are right. One fact in this research caught my attention. Did you now that, in number of supporters, the fifth biggest team in Rio de janeiro is Sao Paulo?
I'm also surprised teams like Atlético-PR and Coritiba are so low in that table? isn't Atlético-PR supposed to be the most popular team in Parana??? and I think the city of coritiba alone has more than 3 million people!
First let me say that Curitiba (the graph of the team's name is different from the city's name) has 1,7 million people (3 million in the metropolitan area). You would have to know the history of the State of Paraná to understand why things are this way. But it has to do with national prominence. Coritiba won the Campeonato Brasileiro only once, in the middle of the eighties. Since then the team has been mediocre. Atlético Paranaense is having sucess in the national level just in recent years. So they have a long road to run through. When I was a kid, there was only one big team in the Southern Brazil: Internacional from Rio Grande do Sul. Grêmio won its first national championship in 1981. After that, they have begun to win consistently in the national (and international) level until they became a respected team. To do the same, the teams from Paraná will have to work very hard. Atlético, in my opinion, is the best bet. I think they will emerg as a national force in the next years. BTW, I'm from Paraná and I support Flamengo (actually the only team with supporters spread all over the country). But my kids are Atlético fans. And their little friends too. So things are beginning to change.
Thanks for the info. I'm looking forward to watching Atletico PR for the first time this sunday on FSW. This team must be good to be in 1st place at the moment, that's why I'm looking forward to it. Something else I notice is that Coritiba FC has the bigger stadium. Atletico is the more popular team, however it plays in such a small stadium (30k) Is this accurate? And what's the main derby in the city of Curitiba?