Copa Merconorte

Copa Merconorte
	The trophy awarded to champions
Organizing body	CONMEBOL
Founded	1998
Abolished	2001; 23 years ago
Region	South America ; North America
Number of teams	16
Related competitions	Copa Mercosur
Most successful club(s)	Atl. Nacional; (2 titles)

The Copa Merconorte (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkopa meɾkoˈnoɾte]) was an international football competition organized by CONMEBOL from 1998 to 2001 by clubs from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela and starting in 2000 clubs from the CONCACAF confederation were invited including Costa Rica, Mexico, and the United States. The competition ran alongside the Copa Mercosur—based on the actual Mercosur economic pact between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.^[1]

Teams did not directly qualify for this competition. Instead, the aim was to generate profits through the television contracts by inviting the most marketable clubs from each country.^[2] Therefore, participation was based on invitation of individual clubs.

The competition—along with the Copa Mercosur—was discontinued following the conclusion of 2001. A football competition to be called the Copa Pan-Americana would replace these two competitions for the 2002 season featuring clubs from both CONMEBOL and CONCACAF. The competition was postponed, with plans to be played in 2003. Instead, a CONMEBOL competition was founded dubbed as the Copa Sudamericana in 2002. The Copa Pan-Americana was never organized in the immediate future and leaving the Sudamericana as the successor of the Copa Merconorte and Copa Mercosur.^[3]

All four editions were won by a Colombian club. Atlético Nacional won it on two occasions (1998 and 2000). All the finalists in the first three editions were Colombian. In the fourth edition, Emelec became the first and only non-Colombian club to reach the finals of the Copa Merconorte.^[1]

Format

Qualification

Teams did not directly qualify for this competition through their national leagues. Participation was based solely on invitation.^[1]^[2]

Tournament

The 1998 and 1999 editions were played with twelve teams of the five corresponding CONMEBOL nations. The twelve teams were divided into three groups and each team meets the others in its group home and away in a round-robin format. The group winners and the best runner-up advanced to a semifinal stage. The semifinals were played over two legs and the winners advanced to the finals which were also played over two legs. In 1999, the Bolivian teams played a qualifying playoff before the first phase of Copa Merconorte.

The 2000 and 2001 editions were expanded to sixteen teams and divided into four groups. With the expansion of another group, only the group winners advanced to the semifinals.

Distribution

The invitations and distribution of berths over the four seasons were as follows.

Association	1998	1999	2000	2001
Bolivia	The Strongest	The Strongest	Oriente Petrolero	Blooming
Colombia	América de Cali Atlético Nacional Deportivo Cali Millonarios	América de Cali Atlético Nacional Millonarios Santa Fe	América de Cali Atlético Nacional Millonarios	América de Cali Atlético Nacional Millonarios
Ecuador	Barcelona El Nacional Emelec	Barcelona El Nacional Emelec	Barcelona El Nacional Emelec	Aucas Barcelona Emelec
Peru	Alianza Lima Sporting Cristal Universitario	Alianza Lima Sporting Cristal Universitario	Alianza Lima Sporting Cristal Universitario	Alianza Lima Sporting Cristal Universitario
Venezuela	Caracas	Caracas	Estudiantes de Mérida	Deportivo Italchacao
Costa Rica	No invitations	No invitations	Alajuelense	No invitations
Mexico	No invitations	No invitations	Guadalajara Necaxa Pachuca Toluca	Guadalajara Necaxa Santos Laguna
United States	No invitations	No invitations	No invitations	Kansas City Wizards NY/NJ MetroStars

Finals

Key
Match decided by a penalty shootout after extra time *
Bold – Indicates the winner in two-legged finals

Year	Country	Winner	Score	Runner-up	Country	Venue	Location
1998	COL	Atlético Nacional	3–1	Deportivo Cali	COL	Atanasio Girardot	Medellín, Colombia
	COL	Atlético Nacional	1–0	Deportivo Cali	COL	Pascual Guerrero	Cali, Colombia
	Atlético Nacional won 4–1 on aggregate
1999	COL	América de Cali	1–2	Santa Fe	COL	Pascual Guerrero	Cali, Colombia
	COL	América de Cali	1–0	Santa Fe	COL	Nemesio Camacho	Bogotá, Colombia
	Tied 2–2 on aggregate; América de Cali won 5–3 on penalties*
2000	COL	Atlético Nacional	0–0	Millonarios	COL	Nemesio Camacho	Bogotá, Colombia
	COL	Atlético Nacional	2–1	Millonarios	COL	Atanasio Girardot	Medellín, Colombia
	Atlético Nacional won 2–1 on aggregate
2001	COL	Millonarios	1–1	Emelec	ECU	Nemesio Camacho	Bogotá, Colombia
	COL	Millonarios	1–1	Emelec	ECU	George Capwell	Guayaquil, Ecuador
	Tied 2–2 on aggregate; Millonarios won 3–1 on penalties*

Performances

By club

Team	Won	Runner-up	Years won	Years runner-up
Atlético Nacional	2	0	1998, 2000	—
Millonarios	1	1	2001	2000
América de Cali	1	0	1999	—
Deportivo Cali	0	1	—	1998
Emelec	0	1	—	2001
Santa Fe	0	1	—	1999

By country

Country	Winners	Runners-up
Colombia	4	3
Ecuador	0	1

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Stokkermans, Karel. "Copa Merconorte". The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
^ ^a ^b Stokkermans, Karel. "South America – "Other Copas"". The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
^ Gonzalez, Miguel. "Copa Pan-Americana 2003". The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 20 June 2013.

External links

[merconorte-1] Stokkermans, Karel. "Copa Merconorte". The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 20 June 2013.

[other_copas-2] Stokkermans, Karel. "South America – "Other Copas"". The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 20 June 2013.

[panamericana-3] Gonzalez, Miguel. "Copa Pan-Americana 2003". The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 20 June 2013.

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