In Colombia, Cup upsets are no big deal

The novelty of this season is the Copa Colombia: our very own, tropically-mixed version of the Euro cup competitions such as the Copa del Rey or the FA Cup thus featuring teams of the two professional divisions of the Colombian game. And alike its european counterparts, on the first round of the Copa Colombia the first division teams are playing with their 2nd or 3rd string sides. And guess what, some of them are losing to second division teams. Millonarios got stopped in its tracks by a much healthy Academia on the first matchday, Deportes Tolima was embarrased by the surprising Girardot F.C. also in the opening game and  in the second matchday, Rionegro shocked its bigger cousin Medellin while heroic Girardot upsed Huila this time and America was ridiculed by Cortulua, a former 1st division side.

But after all these upsets we have seen no alarming press headlines, no sacked coaches and nothing else more than two or three moans here and there by disappointing fans.

This is in parte because no one has been eliminated yet. Unlike the Euro cup competitions, we won’t have direct elimination until the second round, after we finish a group stage of 6 groups of 6, distributed along regional criteria. Also, keep in mind that this is a new competition so quite frankly, no one gives a toss about it yet. Emphasis on “yet” since it will be on it’s final stages probably including teams that have been eliminated from the FPC final stage and awards a spot to the Sudamericana spot. So I expect the Copa Colombia to have a lot more relevancy trough the seasons, after many have tested the shame defeat, and some have tested the delight of glory.

Category: Casual posts