Fall 2009 Playoff Roundup in Central America

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26	27	28	29

A lot of my posts have been on hold while I was finishing up a project for a course that I was taking. Here's one of them -- a roundup of playoff action from the leagues in Central America.

Marathón won their eighth league championship after defeating Motagua 2-1 on aggregate in the Honduran Apertura final played on 22/25 November. Marathón was led by the league's leading goalscorer Jerry Palacios, who bagged 13 goals during the Apertura tournament. (Palacios is part of the quartet of brothers who are all professional footballers; the youngest brother Edwin was tragically kidnapped and murdered last year.) The Green Monsters have proven to be excellent openers; this is the third consecutive Apertura title they've won and the fourth in the last five.

Municipal and Comunicaciones have played the first leg of the Apertura final in Guatemala. Municipal were the #2 seed and defeated Heredia 2-0 on aggregate in the semifinals; Comunicaciones were the #5 seed and defeated Marquense 3-2 on aggregate in the first round and upset top-seed Xelajú on the away goals rule after a 1-1 aggregate draw. Los Rojos scored a vital away win thanks to a goal by Martín Crossa. What made the win even more impressive was that Municipal had to play close to 70 minutes with ten men. The second leg will be played on Sunday as Municipal attempt to wrap up their 27th league title.

The Apertura final in El Salvador will be disputed between FAS and Águila on Sunday. Yesterday the league rolled out the new trophy to be given to the winner, either the 17th league title for FAS or the 15th for Águila. Both sides were at the top of the table for most of the season and won their playoff matches rather comfortably; FAS defeated Vista Hermosa 2-1 over two legs and Águila saw off Firpo 3-0.

An incredible sequence of events in Costa Rica: Alajuelense's loss in the final matchday to Cartaginés and Saprissa's failure to win against Pérez Zeledón left the Big Two out of the playoffs for the first time since the start of the dual tournament format. In the first round, Brujas swept aside the Verano champions Liberia Mía 5-2 on aggregate, while Puntarenas knocked out Cartaginés 3-2 over two legs. The first leg of the semifinal round started yesterday as Pérez Zeledón beat Brujás 2-1 and Puntarenas defeated Herediano 3-1.

The Apertura tournament in Panama finished on 5 December, and Árabe Unido defeated Tauro 3-2 in the grand final. Both sides had to overcome difficult rivals in high-scoring semifinals: AU came back from a 3-0 first leg deficit to defeat Chorrillo 4-3, and Tauro played a thrilling 4-4 draw with Atlético Chiriqui to go through 7-4 on aggregate. At the other end of the table, Alianza and Río Abajo play off on Saturday to decide who will be promoted to the Panamanian top flight. Panama has an unusual football calendar -- the Apertura/Clausura tournaments follow the European calendar, but promotion/relegation is based on calendar year points and occurs after the Apertura!

In Nicaragua, Real Estelí and Walter Ferreti will meet each other in the final of the Apertura, which will be played 20/27 December. The league had a different format from previous tournaments -- there was a 14-game first phase among the eight teams in the Primera División, and then a six-match semifinal round between the top four teams. In the end the story is the same, Real Estelí are in their ninth consecutive final.

News from Belize is not easy to get (the Belize Premier Football League site has to be one of the poorest league sites that I've visited in CONCACAF), but from what I have been able to gather, FC Belize met Belize Defence Force in the BPFL championship earlier this month. BDF won the title 5-2 on aggregate.