The 2000 Categoría Primera A season, known as Copa Mustang 2000 for sponsoring purposes, was the 53rd season of the

Categoría Primera A The Categoría Primera A (), commonly referred to as Liga BetPlay Dimayor (between 2015 and 2019 ''Liga Águila'') due to sponsorship by online betting company BetPlay, is a Colombian professional league for association football clubs. It is the ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

's top-flight football league. The season started on 12 February and ended on 17 December 2000.

América de Cali América de Cali S. A., best known as América de Cali or América, is a Colombian professional football club based in Cali. It competes in the Categoría Primera A, the top-flight league of Colombian football. The team plays its home games at ...

were the champions, clinching their tenth domestic league title with a 2–0 victory over

Deportes Tolima Club Deportes Tolima S.A., commonly known as Deportes Tolima, or simply as Tolima, is a Colombian professional football club based in Ibagué, Tolima Department that currently plays in the Categoría Primera A. Founded in 1954, the club has wo ...

on the final day of the season.

Atlético Nacional Atlético Nacional S. A., best known as Atlético Nacional, is a Colombian professional association football, football club based in Medellín. The club is one of only three clubs to have played in every first division tournament in the countr ...

were the defending champions, but placed seventh in the aggregate table and thus failed to qualify for the final stage of the competition.

Format

The season was split into three stages: the first two stages were the Apertura and Finalización tournaments, in which the 16 teams were first divided into two groups of eight teams, playing seven games, and then all teams in the league played each other once for a total of 22 matches. The winners of each tournament earned a berth into the

2001 Copa Libertadores The 2001 Copa Libertadores de América was the 42nd edition of CONMEBOL's premier club football tournament. The winners were Boca Juniors, beating Mexican club Cruz Azul in the finals on penalties and lifting its fourth Copa Libertadores trophy. ...

. The third and final stage was played by the top four teams of the aggregate table of both tournaments, who played each other twice to decide the champions of the season, who also qualified for the Copa Libertadores. In case the eventual champion had already won the Apertura or Finalización tournaments, the runners-up of the final stage would take the third Copa Libertadores berth as the season's runners-up.

Teams

16 teams competed in the season, the top 15 teams of the relegation table of the 1999 season and

Real Cartagena Real Cartagena is a professional Colombian football team based in Cartagena, that currently plays in the Categoría Primera B. They play their home games at the Jaime Morón León stadium. History The origins of Real Cartagena date back to 197 ...

, who were promoted as champions of the 1999

Categoría Primera B Categoría Primera B, commonly referred to as Torneo BetPlay Dimayor due to sponsorship by online betting company BetPlay (formerly ''Torneo Águila''), is the second-division football league in Colombia. Format DIMAYOR has applied a new forma ...

tournament, replacing

Unión Magdalena Unión Magdalena () commonly known as El Unión, and nicknamed as El Ciclón Bananero (The Banana Cyclone) and also Los Samarios (The Samarios), is a Colombian football club from the city of Santa Marta, capital of the department of Magdalena, ...

who were relegated at the end of the previous season.

Torneo Apertura

The Torneo Apertura (also known as Copa Mustang I) began on 12 February and ended on 2 July.

Standings

Torneo Finalización

The Torneo Finalización (also known as Copa Mustang II) began on 9 July and ended on 26 November. On 17 September 2000, during the 12th round match between Santa Fe and

, referee

Óscar Ruiz Óscar Ruiz may refer to: * Óscar Ruiz (referee), Colombian football referee * Óscar Ruiz (footballer) Óscar Ramón Ruiz Roa (born 14 May 1991) is a Paraguayan professional Association football, footballer who plays as a Winger (association f ...

disallowed a goal for Santa Fe scored by Jeffrey Díaz after checking the existence of a handball with the help of a replay of the television broadcast of the match.

Standings

Aggregate table

An aggregate table known as ''Reclasificación'' including the games of both tournaments (Apertura and Finalización) was used to determine the four teams that would advance to the final stage of the tournament, as well as the team to be relegated at the end of the season. The top four teams in this table at the end of the Torneo Finalización advanced to the final stage, while the team placed last was relegated to

for the following season.

Final stage

In the third stage of the tournament, the four qualified teams played each other under a double round-robin system with the team with the most points at the end of this stage being declared as the champion.

Top goalscorers

Source
RSSSF

References

External links

Dimayor official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:2000 Categoria Primera A Season Categoría Primera A seasons 1 Col