CONMEBOL club WoSo

Just thought I'd start a catch-all South American club WoSo thread - I know there aren't many South American WoSo fans on the forum here at the moment, especially since the game still has a long way to grow there, but maybe having one thread to pour everything would give it enough traffic.

This thread was prompted by the fact I just realized that the Copa Libertadores Femenina is currently underway - the group stage is done, and the SF matches will be played tomorrow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Copa_Libertadores_Femenina

This is the first time that the tournament has been held outside of Brazil. The format of the CLF is twelve teams - the title holder, a champion from each of the 10 C'BOL nations, and a host slot. Since Brazil has hosted every previous tournament and has often won, Brazil has usually supplied three of the twelve teams each year, though this year is surprisingly only the third time more than one Brazilian team has made the SFs.

The first SF pits three-time (and twice-defending) title holders Sao Jose again Brazilian rival Ferrovaria, both teams having won their groups on 7pts. The second SF has Colo Colo of Chile, the second-most-successful currently-active team, against Argentine debutante UAI Urquiza. Not in the SFs are Colombia's Formas Intimas, the only non-Brazilian team aside from Colo Colo to have made three SF appearance, as they lost to Colo Colo in the groups and were a point behind UAIU among second-place teams.

 

Sao Jose will not three-peat, having lost to Ferroviaria by the narrowest of margins, 0-1, earlier this morning - assuming I haven't read all those Portugese Twitter posts backwards. X-D Goal by Adriane Nene.

We could still see a past champion raise the trophy, though, as Colo Colo beat UAIU next, also by a 1-0 scoreline. Goal by Camila Saez. Nice to see the men's Colo Colo also Tweeting about their women's success!

 

=EDIT=
The Tweets I saw earlier today before leaving for seminar were apparently premature, as Colo Colo actually won 2-0, second goal by Francisca Lara.

 

Forgot to mention this before, but the CLF third-place match and the final will both be on Sunday.

In the meantime, I went digging to see what other club WoSo is going on down on the other side of the equator. First place to look: Brazil.

Until 2012, Brazil only had a national cup competition for club teams, but formed a "league" (more like a league-cup hybrid) in 2013. The competition usually runs September to December - since it runs concurrently to the CLF, Brazilian teams are usually a year removed from their domestic championship in the CLF campaigns. This year, though, the Brazilian league ends on November 19th, with only the semifinals and final left to play.

The format of the Brazilian league is as such: two groups phases, then a knockout round. In the first group phase, twenty teams compete in four groups of five, for four games each. I think the groups are roughly but not rigidly regional, but I don't know my Brazilian states. The top two teams in each group then advance to the second group phase, for six games each. (New in 2015 was a draft of some sort between the two group phases for the players on the Brazil WNT.) After the second group phase, the top two teams in each group advance to the semifinals of the home-and-away knockout round.

This year, the four semifinal teams are 2013 champions Centro Olimpico, CLF champions Sao Jose, a third Sao Paulo team Rio Preto, and Tiradentes. (Last year's champion and this year's CLF finalists Ferroviaria surprisingly didn't even make the second group phase, having been in a group with Preto and historically good Santos*.) The two legs of each semifinal will be played between 11/9 and 11/18; not sure yet when the two legs of the final will be played.

I'll look into another country next time I'm bored over lunch break. X-D

*I had previously thought that Santos disbanded its women's side several years ago - the last time they participated in the Copa do Brasil was 2011, and weren't in the league its first two years. But if they're active again now, that means they, not Colo-Colo, are the second-most-successful currently-active team based on CLF performance. That said, if Colo-Colo beats Ferroviaria on Sunday, Colo-Colo will take back the title of second-most-successful currently-active team.

 

Stream keeps crashing on me, but I see on Twitter that Colo Colo is already down 0-3.... This makes me sad.

 

If my last post didn't heavily imply it, Ferroviaria became the fourth club to win the Copa Libertadors (after Santos x2, Sao Jose x3, and Colo Colo) by defeating Colo Colo on Sunday. Final score was 3-1, all goals in the first half.

This qualifies Ferroviara for next year's CLF, which is good for them considering that they aren't in the Brazilian final four this year. Brazil's domestic champion will be decided relatively soon. I also need to look in to Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, as their champions should also be decided before the end of the calendar year.

 

Let's update some South American leagues, yes? =-)

In Brazil, Rio Preto and Centro Olimpico played to two 1-1 draws in their SF, Rio advancing on 4-2 on penalties. The other SF also starting with a 1-1 draw, but Sao Jose demolished Tiradentes 5-0 in the return leg with three(!) PK goals. The first leg of the final went 1-0 in Rio Preto's favor, with Sao Jose hosting the return leg on Sunday.

In Uruguay, the Copa de Oro winner was Colón. It wasn't a cup as you would expect from "Copa de Oro", actually - Colón topped a seven-team table with 33pts, just passing Nacional who had 31pts and a bye on the last gameday. (This is old news, honestly - title was decided in mid-October apparently, but no-one updated an appropriate Wiki page in any language until Nov14.)

In Argentina, I'm not exactly sure what's going on with their league. For a long time, they had an annual competition, then switched to a split season where the split-season champions (if different) had a playoff for the CLF. They had just an annual competition in 2015, though, and that champion played the immediately previous split-season champion - that's how UAIU qualified over San Lorenzo. I'm guessing that the 2016 champion will qualify directly to the 2016 CLF.

In Paraguay, they have a split season and and split-season champions (if different) have a playoff for the CLF. Sportivo Limpeño won the Apertura, and I wish I could find information on the Clausara, but the English Wiki page actually has more info that the Spanish or Portuguese pages do... (Links therein haven't helped much either.) The Apertura ended mid-August, so I have no clue how late the Clausara will end, but it's presumably before the end of the calendar year.

Finally, in Chile, the 2015 Clausara playoffs are currently underway. The Chilean league is split into a northern and southern zone, where every team plays (usually) nine games before the top four teams of each zone enter the playoffs. Colo-Colo has consistently won nearly all regular-season games (dropping just 7pts since the beginning of 2012) and has won each championship since a year before Chile went from an annual league to a split-season league. They are still alive in the current playoffs, having beaten Rangers by a score of 2-1 in the semifinal to set up a ColoColo-vs-Palestino final, with Palestino having beaten Santiago Morning (in what sounds like an upset) the day before. Final will be on Saturday.

I think that's it for the leagues that should have their 2016 CLF reps decided by the end of this calendar year.

 

Upsets upsets!!

In Brazil, Rio Preto managed a draw in Sao Jose to beat Sao Jose 2-1 on aggregate. Sao Jose needs to hope that Brazil hosts the next CLF if they want to qualify!

In Chile, Palestino finally broke the stranglehold of Colo-Colo's 10-straight championships beating them 2-1 in the Chilean final. I presume they will have a play-off either against Colo-Colo (as 2015 Apertura winners) or against the upcoming 2016 Apertura winners for Chile's CLF spot. EDIT: It will be against Colo-Colo, no crossing calendar years for Chile's playoffs (even though the 2016 Apertura would still end well before the next CLF.) Match is Thursday!

 

Um, unless I'm missing something, there isn't anything on the page you linked saying "mujeres" or "femenina", and the goalscorers listed are definitely guys.... (Santiago, Fernando, Jose...)

You see the same table on the right of the page if you follow the "official" link from the Wiki page for the men's league - it's a sidebar that doesn't change based on what you're viewing in the main part of the page.

 

That said, I've dug around a little more, (their website is horrible,) and I think I've finally found some real info:
http://www.apf.org.py/noticia/cerro-y-limpeo-los-ganadores-de-la-fecha-4346.html

Sounds like the league is in its "final phase", which appears to be a four-team final group instead of real playoffs based on this and other recent articles at http://www.apf.org.py/competiciones/7/1. I'm not sure if it's a three-game group or a six-game group.

 

Colo Colo salvaged their CLF streak with a dominant 3-0 performance in the playoff match against Palestino last week. (@zaku_II)
http://www.latercera.com/noticia/de...ca-a-la-copa-libertadores-femenina-2016.shtml

In Paraguay, the second and third matchdays of the final phase were played basically on top of each other, it seems:
http://www.apf.org.py/noticia/cerro-porteo-y-limpeo-irn-por-el-trono-en-femenino-4364.html
Cerro Porteno 6-1 UAA, Cerro 2W-0L (+6)
Limpeno 2-1 Olimpia, Limpeno 2W-0L (+4)
http://www.apf.org.py/noticia/el-clausura-se-ti-de-azulgrana-4369.html
Cerro 2-1 Limpeno, Cerro wins the Clausara

I think it's somewhat wrong of them to have games on either side of Christmas...

 

Was just browsing Wikipedia tonight and was reminded that 2017 is the current target for the first FIFA Women's Club World Cup. The CLF usually is over by mid-November, and the Men's CWC is usually in December, but WoSo runs on a somewhat different schedule than BroSo does. So, question for you all: do you think FIFA goes for a December WCWC, and it'll be the 2017 CLF that's important, or will the WCWC be earlier in the year, and the 2016 CLF (qualification currently underway) is the first important one?

 

Yeah, I'm still questioning if it will happen. However, that's just because it's women's club soccer, not because there aren't continental competitions yet. I, for one, see no reason why you can't have an official competition with invites until something formal exists. Having the CWC exist would certainly put top-down pressure on the confederations for creating true championships, just like the existing continental championships have been responsible for causing domestic growth in many UEFA and CONMEBOL countries. (Besides, for CONCACAF and AFC at least, there really is no question which country would consistently win a continental competition at this point anyway, so just sending their domestic champion seems like qualification enough to me.)

 

In the last domestic competition of the calendar year, Paraguay had a two-legged final between Sportivo Limpeño and Cerro Porteño.

In the first leg, Porteno won 2-1 against Limpeno: http://www.apf.org.py/noticia/zulma-quinez-dirigir-la-final-en-femenino-4441.html

Then, in the second leg, Limpeno won 1-0 to set up a penalty shootout (no away goals rule I guess) which they ended up winning 5-4: http://www.apf.org.py/noticia/limpeo-es-campen-absoluto--4442.html

Sportivo Limpeño will be Paraguay's representative to the 2016 CLF. This ends a three-year CLF run from Cerro Porteño.

 

*blows 5m of dust off the thread*

Just thought I'd see what I could find now that we're mid-summer (er, mid-summer here means mid-winter down there, I guess) about what's going on down in CONMEBOL!

Argentina: As of June 14th, the Torneo Femenino 2016 had its ten clubs (all in the city or province of Buenos Aires, down from 18 clubs last year) with 4 to 6 games each. Leading the table was San Lorenzo with 13pts, followed closely by both Boca Juniors and UAIU, though San Lorenzo has played 6 games while the two chasers were perfect through 4 games.

Bolivia: ? I can't find any information easily... The Champions are usually announced int he August-October timeframe

Brazil: The FBF decided to turn things totally topsy-turvy, maybe due to their hosting the Olympics later this year, and instead of having a fall/winter tournament, their 2016 competition went from January to May! Same format as last year, though: a first group stage of four five-team groups, a draft, a second group stages two four-team groups, and a four-team championship bracket. Rio Preto came incredibly close to defending their title but lost on away goals to Flamengo, a Rio de Janeiro team; losing semifinalists were Sao Jose and Ferroviara - no surprises to see them in the championship bracket. Unless there's a format change for the CLF or how Brazil picks its team, Flamengo have qualified for the 2017 CLF edition.

Chile: The 2016 Apertura is already in the books, and Colo Colo weren't even in the final! Last's Clausara's winners Palestino fell 1-2 to the Universidad de Chile (who also won the U-17 championship). Colo Colo were dispatched by "La U" by the same scoreline in the semifinals. While this is Universidad's first title, they were runners-up in the inaugural 2008 championship.

Colombia: All I know about Colombia is that there will be a "pre-Libertadores Cup".

Ecuador: 12 teams will compete in a July-September league split into three four-team groups, plus (I assume) a championship playoff series.

Paraguay: Just based on earlier posts, I'm guessing this year's league isn't even playing yet, and I don't feel like digging right now. X-D

Peru: According to the Spanish-language Wiki page for the league, Universitario de Deportes has defended its title this year, (an 8-0 win over Central General de Trabajadores del Perú this year after a 7-0 win over Alfredo Vargas Guerra last year,) though there isn't an article for this year's league yet and the "liga femenina" page on Peru's federation's website is woefully out of date, so I don't know any more details than that.

Uruguay: The 2016 Copa de Oro (actually a league, not a cup) is currently nine weeks in. I can't easily find a table on the Uruguay website, but from browsing several weekly results summaries, it seems like the league is owned by Colon, Nacional, and Penarol.

Venezuela: Cant' find any info on the 2016 competition.

 

And just to update about this year's CLF:
We don't yet know who's hosting it, so the twelfth slot is still very up-in-the-air.
Five slots (Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela) are open based on upcoming competition.
Finally, the six other slots are decided: Title Holder Ferroviaria (BRA), BRA15 champion Rio Preto, CHI15 playoff winner Colo Colo, PAR15 champion Sportivo Limpeno, PER16 champion UDeportes, and URU15 champion Colon.

Also, BRA16 champion Flamengo should be qualified for the 2017 CLF.