• The Magazine
  • Interviews
  • Current
  • Nostalgia
  • Legends
  • European
  • World
  • Log in
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • The Magazine
  • Interviews
  • Current
  • Nostalgia
  • Legends
  • European
  • World
  • Log in
  • Subscribe

Averages, riots and a stadium on fire: Argentina’s promedios relegation system explained

The Football Pink by The Football Pink
February 3, 2021
in Latest, World
Averages, riots and a stadium on fire: Argentina’s promedios relegation system explained

By Amos Murphy 

How to find fun during hours and hours of lockdown misery is a question we have all spent the last ten months or so asking ourselves.

For me, it was Football Manager: simulating my way through a parallel universe of footballing scenarios, playing from daylight to night-time (and admittedly back to light) helped cure my self-isolation boredom.  Despite the highs and lows whilst managing Europe’s top sides, the repetitive nature of competing for the same titles and playing against the same teams started to become a bit boring, with one league in South America providing a much-needed injection of excitement.

Steeped in heritage, filled with historic teams and bursting with wonderkids, the Argentine Primera División offered a welcome escape from the mundanity of managing in the European leagues. But whilst casual players of Football Manager might be accustomed to raiding the best young talents from Argentina’s Superliga, few will be aware of its bizarre structure and even freakier relegation system.

Prior to the start of the 2018/19 season, Club Atlético Tigre had spent over a decade in the Primera División – by the time the campaign ended El Matador had come ninth, won the cup, qualified for Copa Sudamericana group stage (South America’s Europa League equivalent), and… been relegated. A top-half finish and continental qualification weren’t enough to prevent the club from relegation, a product of the promedios system – the Primera División’s three-season average for working out who goes down and who stays up.

Unlike in most league systems where a selection of teams with the lowest points total are relegated, on-brand with Argentina’s label as a footballing maverick, the four teams that face relegation from the Superliga are those with the lowest points average across the previous three seasons – the two with the fewest automatically relegated and the other pair entering a play-off system.

In practice it seems quite simple: the number of points gained is divided by the amount of matches played, meaning most sides’ averages will be calculated based off the total fixtures across three seasons – the only exception being for newly promoted sides, whose promedios is worked out from the amount of games played whilst in the division. Its simplicity is lost when trying to understand relegation permutations in the run-up to matches, with those lacking a degree in mathematics often shrugging their shoulders and waiting to see the state of the table after full-time.

Further headaches are caused when calculating the points average of teams that yo-yo between the first and second tiers: if a side is relegated to the Primera B (division two) but earns promotion back to the Primera División immediately, the points tally from their relegation season does not carry over and they start with a clean slate. However, if a team is relegated after just one season in the Primera División, the points from their promotion campaign in Primera B two seasons prior would remain the same, meaning that team would start their campaign back in the second division with whatever average they went up with. Straightforward? No. Nonsensical? Maybe. Invigorating? Most definitely.

Unique in every way, the format’s origins are rooted in controversy, with critics arguing that it was introduced to protect Argentina’s biggest clubs from relegation. But the doubters were silenced in 2011 after record championship winners, River Plate succumbed to the promedios. In a relegation that was never meant to happen, River failed to recover from two of the worst seasons in the club’s history and their form in the 2010/11 campaign saw them drop to the second tier of Argentinian football for the first time in their long and illustrious history. When their fate was sealed, a riot ensued: police clashed with fans, the players were kept in the dressing room for three hours and River’s prestigious stadium – the Monumental – home of Argentina’s 1978 World Cup triumph on home turf, was set alight by enraged supporters.

Such was the dismay in the ranks of the River Plate fanbase, radio commentator Atilio Costa Febre blared live on air that the Belgrano players – the side River lost to in the relegation play-off – were “thieving pigs” and that “the little dictators had thrown s**t on us all”. So, the team that had once housed idols of the game from Juan José López, Mario Kempes and Hernán Crespo, to Ariel Ortega, Javier Mascherano and even the ethereal Alfredo Di Stéfano, found themselves in the Primera B, as a result of the very system invented to protect them.

Eternal enemies Boca Juniors, now the only team in Argentina who had never suffered the embarrassment of relegation, couldn’t get enough of their city rival’s demise – songs, costumes and tifos could be heard and seen at Boca matches following River’s relegation, all bearing reference to the Spanish word for chickens “gallinas”. A long-time insult used by Boca fans, referring to the lack of courage River Plate display. The demise of the gallinas was superior to any victory, player or trophy win Boca had ever experienced, for in Argentina, the one thing greater than winning is cargadas – insult culture.

To be able to go into work or school on the Monday and take the mick out of friends because their team lost at the weekend is deemed sweeter than anything else for an Argentine football supporter – River’s relegation was the ultimate cargar. Boca laughed until they cried.

River Plate’s suffering was short-lived. Los Millonarios returned to the Primera División immediately and under the tutelage of former player Marcelo Gallardo went on a silverware winning rampage: nine trophies in five years culminated with the biggest of them all in 2018, a Copa Libertadores triumph against Superclásico rivals Boca Juniors. The struggles of River were an anomaly on what has traditionally been a fool-proof system for protecting Argentina’s big clubs. For an established side to get relegated, they have to perform below par consistently, with one bad season usually meaning they have a bank of points from previous campaigns to fall back on.

It begs the question, if an averaging system were to be introduced to English football what would its landscape look like today? Former super-powers Nottingham Forest, Leeds United and Aston Villa have all dropped into the abyss based off a relatively short-term collapse. What would it have done for the fortunes of perennial relegation survivors like West Brom and Sunderland, who both sustained periods of dodging the drop in the final weeks of the season, only to repeat their great escape antics a year later.

As exciting as it is to speculate the ifs and buts, it serves no other purpose than reimagining election results if First Past the Post had been replaced by a different electoral system – the truth is whichever apparatus used to determine a result, in the end, it will finish up looking however those who control the power want it to look, which is exactly what the promedios was intended to do. With a full restructure of the Argentine football pyramid promised by the authorities, the infamous averaging system looks to have passed its sell-by date.

Argentine football was no exception to the organisational chaos caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and whilst European governing bodies scrambled to come up with solutions to finish their partly completed seasons, Argentina’s Football Association cancelled all footballing activity in late April, deciding that no side would face relegation for at least two years.

In a move to present a glossier product to the European broadcasting markets, scrapping the averaging system, which has supplied unfiltered drama not seen on a platform as big as the Primera División, would symbolise a shift in Argentina’s footballing outlook. And with the passing of the nation’s poster-boy and stoic idol, Diego Armando Maradona, signalling the end of an era of scandals and controversy for Argentine football, maybe now is the time to modernise one of football’s perpetual motherlands.

But as I sat curled up in my bed in the early hours of one of lockdown’s never-ending nights, can of Carlsberg in one hand and Football Manager running on my laptop, the exotic yet trivial nature of checking the average points tally for the team I was managing provided a different layer of reality never experienced for a European football fan. If the promedios is to go, it will leave behind a legacy befitting of the country’s footballing past – as poetically explained by Diego “I am black and white, I will never be grey”, a concept that can well and truly be applied to the promedios and Argentinian football.

Related Posts

Latest

Mexican Open Tennis Betting Odds: Where to Bet on the 2023 ATP Acapulco Tennis Tournament

Tennis fans are in for a treat with the upcoming 2023 Mexican Open (ATP Acapulco) lineup. We’ve got a...

by Jamie Ingram
February 17, 2023
0
Latest

Best Greyhound Betting Sites in the UK – 9 UK Websites with the Most Competitive Greyhound Betting Odds

Greyhound betting is as exciting as ever, only now it’s possible to do it with just a few taps...

by Jamie Ingram
February 14, 2023
0
Latest

NBA Playoff Odds, Pools, and Predictions: 2023 NBA Post Season Futures Odds

The playoff picture is starting to become apparent with the NBA season past the halfway point. All the best...

by Jamie Ingram
February 14, 2023
0
Latest

Dubai Tennis Championships Betting Odds – How to Bet on the 2023 ATP Dubai Championships

The Dubai Open is the first ATP tour 500 event of the tennis year - and we’ve got the...

by Jamie Ingram
February 14, 2023
0
Load More
Next Post
The Football Pink Podcast- Wimbledon: from non-league to the Crazy Gang

The Football Pink Podcast- Wimbledon: from non-league to the Crazy Gang

liverpool vs man city prediction
Current

Man City vs Liverpool Predictions, Betting Odds & Lines, and Tips (Premier League April 1)

by Jamie Ingram
March 31, 2023
0
0

One of the biggest games in the English Premier League this season is here as Liverpool face-off against title-chasing Man...

Read more
Wrestlemania Betting Odds

WWE WrestleMania 39 Betting Odds 2023 & Expert WrestleMania Predictions

March 31, 2023
0
Anthony Joshua vs. Jermaine Franklin

Anthony Joshua vs Jermaine Franklin Betting Odds, Predictions & Stats: Where to Bet On the Joshua vs Franklin Boxing Match

March 30, 2023
0
valero-open-odds

2023 Valero Texas Open Odds: Where to Bet on the Valero Texas Open, Predictions, and Betting Tips

March 29, 2023
0
David Benavidez vs Caleb Plant - Mar 25

David Benavidez vs Caleb Plant Odds: Fight Predictions, & Betting Tips for the Super Middleweight Showdown

March 22, 2023
0
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Profile

© Copyright 2023 – Football Pink

  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Profile

© Copyright 2022 - Ronnie Dog Media All Rights Reserved. Live Score

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Gmail
  • Print Friendly
  • LinkedIn
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr