The GPS of Argentine football 2024: eight teams from Buenos Aires will play in Serie A and there will be twelve provinces in the First National Team

Friday 29th, last working day of 2023, on AFA he expressed himself through his Disciplinary Tribunal and put an end to the appeal initiated by Colón who requested the annulment of his relegation to the Primera Nacional. With this decision the list of clubs that will play in the will be drawn up Professional League and the First National in 2024. And with it, a vast map that goes from Jujuy to Madryn, with 66 teams (28 in A and 36 in B) and a lot of presence in the city of Buenos Aires.

In the Professional football league Arsenal and the aforementioned Colón, relegated, will no longer be there; their places will be taken by Independent Rivadaviachampion of the First National team, who will return to the elite after 41 years, and Deportivo Riestrawinner of the reduced category of that category, who will play in the First Division for the first time in their history.

With the promotion of Riestra, who in principle will not be able to referee at home in his stadium, Villa Soldati’s Guillermo Laza, eight of the 28 participants in the Professional League (28.6%) will be CABAwhich covers 0.0055% of the national territory if the Antarctic surface and the islands of the South Atlantic are included (0.0073% if only the continental land is considered) and in which only 6.75% of the country’s population resides .

The province of Buenos Aires will have 10 representatives in the highest category (35.71%), of which nine (32.14%) are based in one of the 40 municipalities of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The only one who breaks this rule is Sarmiento de Junín. Therefore, 17 of the 28 participants in the next Argentine football first division competition (64.3%) will be based less than 60 kilometers from the monolith that marks the zero kilometer of the country’s national roads, located in Plaza Mariano Moreno of the city of Buenos Aires .

Sarmiento, located 270 kilometers from the city of Buenos Aires, will not be the only club in Tierradentro to give away a gift. Federal representation will also be in the hands of 10 other teams from five provinces. The two most populous in the country (after Buenos Aires) will have three casts each: after the descent of Columbus, Santa Fe retained Rosario Central, Newell’s and Unión; While, Cordoba will retain Talleres, Belgrano and Instituto.

Mendoza has doubled its presence by 2024, since Independiente Rivadavia joined the consolidated Godoy Cruz. And the Mendoza team was one match away from the trio, but Deportivo Maipú lost the shortened final against Deportivo Riestra. Moreover, both Tucuman AS Santiago del Estero They will have one representative: Atlético and Central Córdoba respectively.

Official activity for the 28 teams that will play in the Professional League begins at the end of January, with the start of the 2024 Professional League Cup. Contrary to what happened in 2023, this year’s calendar for Argentine football’s elite will have the first part destined for that competition and then, starting from May, the championship will begin to take place according to the 27-date round-robin format, which will have an interruption after the 5th matchday for the 2024 Copa América.

The Prima Nazionale, more federal than the Serie A

In the First National, the predominance pattern of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area it is less marked That of the Professional League: 19 out of 38 clubs (50%) come from there. Among these, there are five from CABA (Defensores de Belgrano, Nueva Chicago, All Boys, Ferro and Atlanta) and 14 from the municipalities of Buenos Aires.

In this sense the novelty is the incorporation of those promoted Climbing Remedies Workshop (after 28 years of absence) e San Miguel (after 22 years between Primera B, C and D), and relegated Arsenalwhich returns to the second division after three and a half years.

In addition to AMBA, three other Buenos Aires clubs will compete in the Primera Nacional: Carlos Casares’ young Agropecuario Argentino (it was founded in 2011) and Mar del Plata teams Aldosivi and Alvarado. The other 16 teams will represent others 11 provinceswhich gives a much more federal character to this competition.

There will be five provinces which will have two sets: Cordoba (Racing and Students of Río Cuarto), Santa Fe (Colón and Atlético de Rafaela), Mendoza (Gimnasia and Deportivo Maipú), Santiago del Estero (Miter and Güemes) e Chubut (Guillermo Brown and Deportivo Madryn). Among the six who will have a team, the novelty is brought Jump: with the increase of Gymnastics and shootingwill be represented in this category again after almost 18 years (the last participant was Juventud Antoniana in the 2005/06 season).

The rest of the only provincial representatives of the Primera Nacional almost go out of memory when reviewing the names of the clubs: Chaco For Ever, San Martín de San Juan, San Martín de Tucumán, Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy and Patronato de Paraná, in Entre Fiumi.

The format of the First National Tournament for 2024 will be similar to that of last year, this time with two zones of 19 teams: the best will play a final for the First Promotion, and the best classified will play a Redoubt. This Wednesday the two groups will be drawn and the last minute novelty is the inclusion of interzonals between paired or classic rivals, such as Aldosivi and Alvarado del Mar del Plata, the so-called “forbidden classic” of La Feliz which has not been officially disputed since 1997.

The “domino effect” of promotions in AFA

In the universe of competitions organized by the AFA, the tectonic plates have finished shifting with the administrative promotions of Liniers and Sportivo Italiano to First B, to which the champions Excursionistas, San Martín de Burzaco, Deportivo Laferrere and Ferrocarril Midland had also risen from the First C. Thus, the third division will have 22 participants in 2024, while in the new fourth division, in which C and D will merge, 25 clubs will compete.

With the promotion of Gimnasia y Tiro, the relegations of Sportivo Peñarol de San Juan and Liniers de Bahía Blanca, and without any fall in its orbit from the Primera Nacional, the Torneo Federale A currently has 33 clubs from 14 provinces. We still expect, in principle, the four promotions foreseen by the Federal Regional Amateur Tournament, a competition still under development (it will end in February) and in which 376 clubs from 23 provinces of the country are competing.