Ecuadorian Serie A

Primera Categoría Serie A

Countries	Ecuador
Confederation	CONMEBOL
Founded	1957
Number of teams	12
Levels on pyramid	1
Relegation to	Serie B
International cup(s)	Copa Libertadores Copa Sudamericana
Current champions	LDU Quito (2010)
Most championships	Barcelona El Nacional (13 titles each)
TV partners	Teleamazonas Ecuavisa TC Televisión & Gama TV Ecuador TV Oromar Televisión Grupo TVCable Univisa DirecTV Claro TV
Website	Official webpage
2011 Serie A season

The Primera Categoría Serie A, simply known as the Serie A or the Primera A, is a professional football league in Ecuador. At the top of the Ecuadorian football league system, it is the country's premier and primary football competition. Contested by twelve clubs, it operates a system of promotion and relegation with the Serie B, the second and lowest level of the Primera Categoría. The season runs from February to December and is usually contested in multiple stages. It is sponsored by Credife and is officially known as the Copa Credife Serie A.

While initially not a league, the Serie A has its roots in the national championship between the top teams of Ecuador's two regional leagues. For the first nine editions, teams from Guayaquil and Quito qualified to the competition through their professional regional leagues. It abandoned the qualification format to form a proper league in 1967. Since the first edition in 1957, the tournament has been held annually (except 1958 and 1959); the 2005 season had two champions. It is ranked by IFFHS as 14th strongest football leagues in the world for 2011, and the 6th strongest in South America.^[1]

Eight different teams have been crowned Ecuadorian champions, but four teams have a combined total of 46 championships. The most successful clubs are Barcelona and El Nacional, each with thirteen titles. The defending champion is LDU Quito, who won their tenth title in 2010.

Format

The format for the Serie A national championship consistently changes from season to season. The most common historic format is a two-stage tournament, to which teams qualify to a mini-league (Spanish: Liguilla) to determine the champion. The current format is new for the 2010 season and consists of three stages. The First and Second Stages each follow the double round-robin format. The winners of each stage play against each other in the Third Stage for the championship. A third-place match also takes place in the Third Stage between the next two-best teams in the aggregate table. If the same team wins both the First and Second Stage, they are automatically the champion. In this case, the second and third best teams in the aggregate table play against each other for runner-up.

Relegation is done after the Second Stage and determined through an aggregate table of the first two stages. Teams throughout the season compete to play in following season's Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana.

History

All of football in Ecuador was amateur football until 1950 when the Guayas Football Association (Spanish: Asociación de Fútbol del Guayas [AFG]) turned professional and held its first professional tournament for affiliated clubs (for clubs in Guayaquil). The Professional Football Championship of Guayaquil (Spanish: Campeonato Professional de Fútbol de Guayaquil) was first held in 1951 and was won by Río Guayas. In 1954, the football association in Pichincha (current the Asociación de Fútbol No Amatur de Pichincha [AFNA]) decided to turn professional and hold a professional tournament of their own for their affiliated clubs (for clubs in Quito & Ambato). The first Inter-Andean Professional Championship (Spanish: Campeonato Professional Interandino) was held in 1954 and was won by LDU Quito.

The two tournaments were the top-level football leagues in Ecuador, but the champion of each could not claim to be the national champion. That changed in 1957 when a national football tournament was organized for the winners the two leagues. The first Ecuadorian Football Championship was contested between the champion and runner-up of the 1957 Campeonato Professional de Fútbol de Guayaquil of (Emelec & Barcelona, respectively) and the champion and runner-up of the 1957 Campeonato Professional Interandino (Deportivo Quito and Aucas, respectively). Emelec won the tournament and became the first national champions of football in Ecuador.

No championship was held in 1958 & 1959. The tournament return in 1960 using the same format as in 1957. This time the field grew from four teams to eight teams. The format continued until 1967 when a number of changes occurred: 1) the regional tournaments were discontinued after the 1967 season; 2) teams contesting the national championship from 1968 onwards were now part of the Primera Categoría; and 3) a second level of Ecuadorian football (Segunda Categoría) was put into play and a system of relegation and promotion began in 1967.

In 1971, the Primera Categoría was divided into two Series: Serie A & Serie B. Serie A was to be the top level of club football, while Serie B was the second, and Segunda the third. Between, 1983–1988, Serie B was merged into the Segunda, but the Serie A continued. Serie B was brought back in 1989, and has stayed as the second level since.

In 2005, the Campeonato Ecuatoriano was divided into two tournaments to crown two champions in one year. The two tournaments were called Apertura and Clausura. The tournament returned to its year-long format in 2006.

Clubs

See also: All-time Ecuadorian Serie A table

A total of 53 clubs have competed in the Serie A since the first season in 1957. Although Barcelona is the only club to have never been relegated, no club has ever played in every season. This anomaly is due to the fact that for the 1964 competition, teams from Guayaquil (including Barcelona) declined to participate in the national championship.

The following twelve clubs are competing in the Serie A during the 2011 season.

Club	Home city	Stadium	First season in the Serie A	First season in current spell	Last title
Barcelona	Guayaquil	Monumental Banco Pichincha	1957	1965	1997
Deportivo Cuenca	Cuenca	Alejandro Serrano Aguilar	1971	2002	2004
Deportivo Quito	Quito	Olímpico Atahualpa	1957	1980	2009
El Nacional	Quito	Olímpico Atahualpa	1964	1980	2006
Emelec	Guayaquil	George Capwell	1957	1981	2002
ESPOLI	Quito	Olímpico Municipal Etho Vega	1994	2008	N/A
Imbabura	Ibarra	Olímpico de Ibarra	2007	2011	N/A
Independiente José Terán	Sangolquí	Rumiñahui	2010	2010	N/A
LDU Loja	Loja	Federativo Reina del Cisne	2005	2011	N/A
LDU Quito	Quito	Casa Blanca	1960	2002	2010
Manta FC	Manta	Jocay	2003	2009	N/A
Olmedo	Riobamba	Olímpico de Riobamba	1971	2004	2000

Champions by year

Barcelona and El Nacional each have 13 titles, making them the most successful clubs in the league. They are followed by Emelec and LDU Quito (both with 10 titles), Deportivo Quito with 4 titles, and Deportivo Cuenca, Olmedo, and Everest with one title each. All the clubs that have won multiple titles have won back-to-back titles at least once. El Nacional is the only club to have won three titles in a row, which they have done twice from 1976–1978 and 1982–1984.

Season		Champion (Title count)	Runner-up	Third place	Leading goalscorer(s)[2]
1957		Emelec (1)	Barcelona	Deportivo Quito	Simón Cañarte (Barcelona; 4 goals)
1958		No championship held
1959		No championship held
1960		Barcelona (1)	Emelec	Patria	Enrique Cantos (Barcelona; 8 goals)
1961		Emelec (2)	Patria	Everest	Galo Pinto (Everest; 12 goals)
1962		Everest (1)	Barcelona	Emelec	Iris López (Barcelona; 9 goals)
1963		Barcelona (2)	Emelec	Deportivo Quito	Carlos Alberto Raffo (Emelec; 4 goals)
1964		Deportivo Quito (1)	El Nacional	LDU Quito	Jorge Valencia (América de Manta; 8 goals)
1965		Emelec (3)	9 de Octubre	Barcelona	Helio Cruz (Barcelona; 8 goals)
1966		Barcelona (3)	Emelec	Politécnico	Coutinho (LDU Quito; 13 goals)
1967		El Nacional (1)	Emelec	Barcelona	Tom Rodríguez (El Nacional; 16 goals)
1968		Deportivo Quito (2)	Barcelona	Emelec	Víctor Battaini (Deportivo Quito; 19 goals)
1969		LDU Quito (1)	América de Quito	Aucas	Francisco Bertocchi (LDU Quito; 26 goals)
1970		Barcelona (4)	Emelec	América de Quito	Rómulo Dudar Mina (Macará; 19 goals)
1971		Barcelona (5)	América de Quito	Emelec	Alfonso Obregón (LDU Portoviejo; 18 goals)
1972		Emelec (4)	El Nacional	Barcelona	Nelsinho (Barcelona; 24 goals)
1973		El Nacional (2)	Universidad Católica	Barcelona	Ángel Marín (América de Quito; 18)
1974		LDU Quito (2)	El Nacional	Deportivo Cuenca	Ángel Liciardi (Deportivo Cuenca; 19 goals)
1975		LDU Quito (3)	Deportivo Cuenca	Aucas	Ángel Liciardi (Deportivo Cuenca; 36 goals)
1976		El Nacional (3)	Deportivo Cuenca	Emelec	Ángel Liciardi (Deportivo Cuenca; 19 goals)
1977		El Nacional (4)	LDU Quito	Universidad Católica	Fabián Paz y Miño (El Nacional; 27 goals)
1978		El Nacional (5)	Técnico Universitario	Emelec	Juan José Pérez (LDU Portoviejo; 24 goals)
1979		Emelec (5)	Universidad Católica	Manta	Carlos Miori (Emelec; 26 goals)
1980		Barcelona (6)	Técnico Universitario	Universidad Católica	Miguel Gutierrez (América de Quito; 26 goals)
1981		Barcelona (7)	LDU Quito	El Nacional	Paulo Cesar (LDU Quito; 25 goals)
1982		El Nacional (6)	Barcelona	LDU Portoviejo	José Villafuerte (El Nacional; 25 goals)
1983		El Nacional (7)	9 de Octubre	Barcelona	Paulo César (Barcelona; 28 goals)
1984		El Nacional (8)	9 de Octubre	LDU Quito	Sergio Saucedo (Deportivo Quito; 25 goals)
1985		Barcelona (8)	Deportivo Quito	Filanbanco	Juan Carlos de Lima (Universidad Católica; 24 goals) Guga (Esmeraldas Petrolero; 24 goals)
1986		El Nacional (9)	Barcelona	Técnico Universitario	Juan Carlos de Lima (Deportivo Quito; 23 goals)
1987		Barcelona (9)	Filanbanco	Audaz Octubrino	Ermen Benitez (El Nacional; 24 goals) Hamilton Cuvi (Filanbanco; 24 goals) Waldemar Victorino (LDU Portoviejo; 24 goals)
1988		Emelec (6)	Deportivo Quito	No third-place awarded	Janio Pinto (LDU Quito; 18 goals)
1989		Barcelona (10)	Emelec	Deportivo Quito	Ermen Benítez (El Nacional; 18 goals)
1990		LDU Quito (4)	Barcelona	Emelec	Ermen Benítez (El Nacional; 33 goals)
1991		Barcelona (11)	Valdez	El Nacional	Pedro Varela (Delfín; 24 goals)
1992		El Nacional (10)	Barcelona	Emelec	Carlos Muñoz (Barcelona; 19 goals)
1993		Emelec (7)	Barcelona	El Nacional	Diego Herrera (LDU Quito; 21 goals)
1994		Emelec (8)	El Nacional	Barcelona	Manuel Uquillas (ESPOLI; 25 goals)
1995		Barcelona (12)	ESPOLI	El Nacional	Manuel Uquillas (Barcelona; 24 goals)
1996		El Nacional (11)	Emelec	Barcelona	Ariel Graziani (Emelec; 28 goals)
1997		Barcelona (13)	Deportivo Quito	Emelec	Ariel Graziani (Emelec; 24 goals)
1998		LDU Quito (5)	Emelec	No third-place awarded	Iván Kaviedes (Emelec; 43 goals)
1999		LDU Quito (6)	El Nacional	Emelec	Christian Botero (Macará; 25 goals)
2000		Olmedo (1)	El Nacional	Emelec	Alejandro Kenig (Emelec; 25 goals)
2001		Emelec (9)	El Nacional	Olmedo	Carlos Juárez (Emelec; 17 goals)
2002		Emelec (10)	Barcelona	El Nacional	Christian Carnero (Deportivo Quito; 26 goals)
2003		LDU Quito (7)	Barcelona	El Nacional	Ariel Graziani (Barcelona; 23 goals)
2004		Deportivo Cuenca (1)	Olmedo	LDU Quito	Ebelio Ordóñez (El Nacional; 24 goals)
2005	A	LDU Quito (8)	Barcelona	No third-place awarded	Wilson Segura (LDU Loja; 21 goals)
	C	El Nacional (12)	Deportivo Cuenca	LDU Quito	Omar Guerra (Aucas; 21 goals)
2006		El Nacional (13)	Emelec	LDU Quito	Luis Miguel Escalada (Emelec; 29 goals)
2007		LDU Quito (9)	Deportivo Cuenca	Olmedo	Juan Carlos Ferreyra (Deportivo Cuenca; 17 goals)
2008		Deportivo Quito (3)	LDU Quito	Deportivo Cuenca	Pablo Palacios (Barcelona; 20 goals)
2009		Deportivo Quito (4)	Deportivo Cuenca	Emelec	Claudio Bieler (LDU Quito; 22 goals)
2010		LDU Quito (10)	Emelec	Deportivo Quito	Jaime Ayoví (Emelec; 23 goals)

Titles by club

Team	Nº of titles	Years
Barcelona	13	1960, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1971, 1980, 1981, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1995, 1997
El Nacional	13	1967, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1992, 1996, 2005 Clausura, 2006
Emelec	10	1957, 1961, 1965, 1972, 1979, 1988, 1993, 1994, 2001, 2002
LDU Quito	10	1969, 1974, 1975, 1990, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2005 Apertura, 2007, 2010
Deportivo Quito	4	1964, 1968, 2008, 2009
Deportivo Cuenca	1	2004
Olmedo	1	2000
Everest	1	1962

Titles by city

City	Nº of titles	Clubs
Quito	27	El Nacional (13), LDU Quito (10), Deportivo Quito (4)
Guayaquil	24	Barcelona (13), Emelec (10), Everest (1)
Cuenca	1	Deportivo Cuenca (1)
Riobamba	1	Olmedo (1)

All-time top goalscorers

Ecuadorian Ermen Benítez is the league's all-time top-scorer, having scored 191 goals over 25 season. He is also holds the record for scoring the most goals for one team. The top active goalscorer is Ebelio Ordóñez.^[3]

Rank	Player	Club(s)	Years	Goals	Total goals
1	Ermen Benítez	El Nacional	1980–90	154	191
		Barcelona	1991–92	19
		LDU Quito	1993	1
		Green Cross	1994	12
		LDU Portoviejo	1995	5
2	Jorge Ron	El Nacional	1972–79	94	181
		Universidad Católica	1980–84	73
		Macará	1986	6
		Aucas	1987	8
3	Ebelio Ordóñez	Técnico Universitario	1996	13	159
		El Nacional	1997–2004; 2006–07	137
		Emelec	2005	0
		Deportivo Quito	2008; 2009	9
4	Ángel Liciardi	Emelec	1970–71	8	154
		Deportivo Cuenca	1972; 1974–77	132
		Barcelona	1978	14
5	Fabián Paz y Miño	El Nacional	1972–88	153	153

See also

• Ecuadorian Football Federation
• Ecuadorian football league system
• Football in Ecuador
• List of football clubs in Ecuador

References

1. ^ "The strongest National League in the World 2010". IFFHS. http://www.iffhs.de/?b6e28fa3002f71504e52d17f7370eff3702bb1c2bb11. Retrieved January 11, 2011. 
2. ^ Andrés, Juan Pablo; Espinoza Añazco, Fernando (January 29, 2010). "Ecuador - List of Topscorers". website. RSSSF. http://www.rsssf.com/tablese/ecuatops.html. Retrieved November 27, 2010. 
3. ^ Espinoza Añazco, Fernando (January 29, 2010). "Ecuador - List of All-Time Topscorers 1957-2009". RSSSF. http://www.rsssf.com/tablese/ecuatops-allt.html. Retrieved November 6, 2010. 

External links

• Official webpage (Spanish)
• Serie A on RSSSF