"Traditionalists" often tell us as football fans that a final series is not the way to decide a championship. Proper leagues are of course decided by a first past the post system. But when it comes down to it there is little that can match the drama and excitement of a final to decide who wins the championship.
Brisbane Roar fans will always cherish those three mad minutes earlier this year and just over three months later they still take every opportunity to remind everyone about them. I usually would be on the side of the "traditionalists" but after watching another title decider that matched and may have even surpassed the A-League decider in terms of drama, controversy and excitement I might be moving over to the "finals are a good thing" way of thinking.
On Monday I watched the conclusion of the Chilean Apertura season in the form of the second leg of the final between archrivals, Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile. Like the A-League, Chile determines its championship by a finals series. But unlike the A-League, it's strictly a playoff system with each final played over two legs and if you lose you're out. There are no second chances. Added to this, there are no such things as away goals and to avoid the lottery of penalty shootouts if the aggregate score are tied, the tiebreaker is who finished higher on the league table come the end of the regular season.
Some things you can almost always guarantee about Chilean football are that there will be lots of goals, lots of cards and some questionable defending and the final match of the Apertura season was no different. Going into the match Universidad Católica had the advantage after winning the first leg 2-0 and having finished top of the table could afford to lose by two goals and still take out the championship. Universidad de Chile, nicknamed La "U", in order to have any chance of taking out the title had to go on the attack from the start. It was a classic case of the best attack against the meanest defence.
It didn't take long for the drama to begin with three goals within the first twenty-five minutes, which included a penalty, an own goal and a superb volley from a miscued clearance. The score line after this early drama was 2-1 in favour of La "U" but it was only a small pointer to the drama that would unfold. Eleven minutes later Universidad Católica were down to down to ten men as Tomás Costa, who scored a wonderful solo goal in the first leg, picked up a second yellow card for an unnecessary foul.
The half-time whistle gave everyone fifteen minutes of respite from the frenetic opening to the match and at this stage Católica would have been fairly confident of hanging on to win the championship. But that all changed come the first twenty minutes of the second half as los cruzados, as Universidad Católica are otherwise known, gave away another penalty, conceded another goal and had another player sent off plus their reserve goalkeeper was also sent off from the bench. The team that had looked the most stable throughout the whole season and had in the space of just over an hour had completely imploded and in the process given away their advantage. It was like watching a car crash and you couldn't look away. It was truly riveting stuff and the kind of thing you can only get in a playoff type situation.
Despite being down to nine men, los cruzados still only needed one goal to take out the title and with twelve minutes left in normal time they got a sniff of a lifeline as Universidad de Chile's hat-trick hero, Gustavo Canales, picked up a second yellow card in controversial circumstances. However, twelve minutes plus five minutes of additional time wasn't enough for Católica to snatch an unlikely title triumph, something that you would have thought would have been a foregone conclusion ninety minutes earlier.
The car crash didn't end there with the match officials having to be protected by riot police from Universidad Católica players and coaching staff. If you remember the ending of the Newcastle/Central Coast Grand Final a couple of years ago, that was a picnic compared to some of the scenes in the centre of the Estadio Nacional. The outcome of which sees six Católica players set to front a disciplinary tribunal with suspensions of ten to fifteen matches (if not more) expected to be handed out.
As we have seen with the A-League final and I witnessed with the final of the Chilean Apertura season, finals do have a place in the world of football because sometimes the drama, excitement and controversy outweigh the tradition. This unlikely win will go down in Universidad de Chile folklore just as will Brisbane's win earlier this year and years to come both sets of fans will surely talk about it for years to come. And you know what the best thing is, it will all happen again in six months time as the Chilean Clausura season comes to its conclusion. With the absence of action in the A-League at the moment, this is a great substitute.
If you want to learn more about the wonderful and sometimes bizarre world of Chilean football, you can visit quite possibly the only blog in English solely dedicated to the Chilean game, vivalarojamierda.
