The 2002
Categoría Primera A season was the 54th season of
Colombia's top-flight football league.
Format
Starting from this year, the General Assembly of
DIMAYOR approved the expansion of the tournament from 16 to 18 teams, adding to the league two of the three DIMAYOR "A-class" associates who were taking part of the
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 form ...
at the time through a
special promotion tournament.
In addition to this, the league started awarding two championships per season, thus making the ''Apertura'' and ''Finalización'' tournaments independent championships within a single season.
For both the Apertura and Finalización tournaments, the 18 teams were first divided into three groups of six teams, playing five games, and then all teams in the league played each other once for a total of 22 matches. The semifinal round was played by the best eight teams at the end of the 22 matches, who were divided into two groups of four teams each according to their position at the end of the first stage: odd-ranked teams made up Group A, while even-ranked ones made up Group B. The winners of each group played the finals to decide the champions of each tournament.
Torneo Apertura
The Torneo Apertura (officially the 2002 Copa Mustang I for sponsorship reasons) was the first tournament of the season. The tournament began on 3 February and ended on 19 June.
First stage
Standings
Semifinals
Group A
Standings
Results
Group B
Standings
Results
Finals
Top goalscorers
Torneo Finalización
The Torneo Finalización (officially the 2002 Copa Mustang II for sponsorship reasons) was the second tournament of the season. It began on 7 July and ended on 22 December.
First stage
Standings
Semifinals
Group A
Standings
Results
Group B
Standings
Results
Finals
Top goalscorers
Aggregate table
An aggregate table including all games that a team played during the year was used to determine berths to both the
Copa Libertadores and the
Copa Sudamericana. The best-placed non-champion qualified for the
2003 Copa Libertadores
The 2003 Copa Libertadores de América (officially the 2003 Copa Toyota Libertadores de América for sponsorship reasons) was the 44th edition of the Copa Libertadores, CONMEBOL's premier annual international club tournament.
The tournament was ...
along with both champions of the season, while the second and third best-placed non-champions qualified for the
2003 Copa Sudamericana.
Relegation
Rules for classification: 1st average; 2nd wins; 3rd goal difference; 4th number of goals scored; 5th away goals scored.
References
External links
Dimayor official website
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Categoría Primera A seasons
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