Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
We start our guide to Spanish football with a look at the league and cup structure. For those familiar with the Scottish and English formats it can be a bit confusing, especially when you read about B teams playing in the second division and four leagues called Segunda B, however, it’s really not that complicated once you get that hang of it.
The National Leagues: Primera and Segunda
The Spanish league structure works using a pyramid system. Like the German and Italian systems, the leagues become more regionalized the further down the pyramid you go. At the very top of the pyramid you have Primera División (commonly refered to as La Liga). This league works in exactly the same way as the Premier League in England or Serie A in Italy. There are 20 teams, each team plays each other twice, the top team is crowned champions and the bottom three are relegated. Under the current UEFA co-efficient, the top three automatically qualify for the UEFA Champions League while the fourth placed side enters the final Champions League qualifying round. The teams finishing fifth and sixth enter the UEFA Europa League.
Below Primera División we find Segunda División which comprises of 22 teams. Like in Primera, each team plays each other twice.In a model based on the English Championship, the top two teams are automatically promoted to Primera while the teams finishing third to sixth enter into the play-offs for the final promotion place. The play-off system comprises of two, two-legged semi-finals and a two-legged final. Unlike Scotland or England, Spain doesn’t have a reserve league and therefore reserve teams are incorporated into the pyramid system. Depending on the quality of the team, reserve teams (called B teams in Spain) can be found anywhere in the league system, except the same league as their A team. That means the B teams of Primera División teams can only rise as high as Segunda, the B teams of Segunda teams as high as Segunda B and so on all the way down the pyramid. If a B team does rise as high as Segunda and finishes in a promotion position, their place will be given to the team one place below them. This happened in season 2010/2011 when Barcelona B finished third in Segunda. At the bottom of the Segunda table, the bottom four sides are relegated to the corresponding Segunda B league.
Segunda B: The beginning of regional leagues
Primera and Segunda are the only two truly national leagues after which the system becomes more regionalised. The third tier of Spanish football is known as Segunda B and comprises of 80 teams split into four leagues of 20. The make up of the leagues is determined by geographical factors, e.g. teams from the northern regions of Cantabria, the Basque Country, Asturias and Castilla y León will compete in one league, teams from the east coast of Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands in an other and so on. It should be pointed out that this is not a regional league per se, there can be some anomalies, but this is a semi professional league and they try to organize it in a way that avoids lengthy bus trips across Spain. In each league there are 38 games with each team playing each other twice. At the end of the season a series of play-offs involving 16 teams begin to decide which 4 teams will replace the four coming down from Segunda División. The play-off system, known as the Playoffs de Ascenso, is complicated and works in the following way.
There are four rounds in the system. The first round only involves the four group winners and ends with two teams being promoted and the overall Segunda División B champion being declared. In this round, the four group winners are paired off in two-legged ties. The two winners of these ties become the first two teams promoted to Segunda División. Furthermore they then play each other to determine who is the overall Segunda División B champion. The two runners-up reenter the play-offs in the third round. In the second round, the four third placed teams are paired against each other whilst the 4 second placed teams are paired against the four fourth placed teams. The 6 winners of these ties plus the 2 runners-up from the first round make up the third round. Once again teams are paired off in two-legged ties with the four winners making up the final round. In the final round the teams are paired off one more time in two-legged ties with the two tie winners becoming the final two teams promoted to Segundo División B. Once again, in both promotion and relegation the same rules regarding B teams apply.
Relegation from Segunda División B is a little less complicated. In total there are 18 teams relegated. The first 16 to be relegated are the bottom four from each league. The final two are decided by two legged ties between the 16th placed teams in each league.
Terecera and the rest of the pyramid
If a team is relegated from Segunda División B then it will drop into Terecera División (Third Division). This is the fourth tier of Spanish football and comprises of 361 teams divided into 18 groups of either 19, 20, 21 or 22 teams. The reason for the differences is that they are divided specifically along regional lines and some regions have more teams than others. For example Andalusia, Spain’s biggest region, has two whole groups. Promotion from Tercera División works along the same format as Segunda División B but on a much larger scale. Usually the bottom three from each group are relegated to a lower ranking regional division but the numbers of teams relegated can vary depending on the region. After Tercera División there are a serious of regional divisions which in vary in number depending on the region. These leagues can contain teams from extremely small villages, who realistically have no hope of ever making it up the ladder to even Segundo B but who theoretically could go all the way to Primera División.
The Copa del Rey, Supercopa and Copa Federación
In Spain there is only one national cup competiton, the Copa del Rey (The King’s Cup). In total 80 teams participate in the tournament, all the teams from Primera and Segunda, 20 teams from Segunda B (the first five from each group) and 18 from Tercera (the champions of each group). In the first couple of rounds are ties are one-off matches, however, from the fourth round onwards the ties become two-legged. It is at this round that the teams from Primera enter the competition. The two-legged format continues all the way to the semi-finals. The final itself is played in a neutral venue and is a one-off match. All the games in the Copa del Rey, including the final, are played midweek and the winners qualify for the UEFA Europa League. Furthermore, the winners take part in the Supercopa de España (Spanish Super Cup) the following season. This is two-legged match played against the Primera División champions before the start of the following season. For teams from Segunda B and Tercera who didn’t qualify for the Copa del Rey, there is the Copa Federación (The Federation Cup). This competition takes place in two phases, a regional and a national. All matches, including the final, are two-legged.
