The Copa Uruguay (officially Copa AUF Uruguay)
is a knockout football competition in men's domestic Uruguayan
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
, starting in 2022.
The competition starts in June, with the winner of the cup qualifying for the following year's
Supercopa Uruguaya
The Supercopa Uruguaya (''Uruguayan Supercup'') is an annual one-match football official competition in Uruguay organised by the Uruguayan Football Association (AUF) which is played between the Primera División champions and the Torneo Intermedi ...
, starting from the 2023 edition.
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]
History
Historically, Uruguayan football never had a national cup tournament, aside from a competition called ''Torneo de Copa'', which happened only in 1969. In 2018, teams started to mobilize in favour of the creation of a national cup, but nothing came of it.
On 20 April 2022, the Uruguayan Football Association
The Uruguayan Football Association ( es, Asociación Uruguaya de Fútbol — ) is the governing body of football in Uruguay. It was founded in 1900, as The Uruguayan Association Football League, and affiliated to FIFA in 1923. It is a founding me ...
announced the creation of the ''Copa AUF Uruguay'', being approved by several clubs involved.[ The first edition of the competition, which was played from 22 June to 13 November 2022, was won by ]Defensor Sporting
Defensor Sporting Club is a sports club based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Founded in 1913, Defensor has several sports sections, with football and basketball being the most important and the ones in which the club has achieved significant achievemen ...
who defeated La Luz in the final.
Format
For its first edition in 2022
File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...
, the competition was divided into two stages: a preliminary stage and the national stage.[
In the preliminary stage, teams from the amateur lower leagues compete for 20 berths to the national stage. In the first phase of the national stage, 24 teams from the Primera División Amateur and ]Segunda División
The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...
enter the competition, for a total of 48 teams which are divided into 24 ties, with the winners qualifying for the second round. The 24 second round winners advance to play against each other to define 12 winners into the third phase.[
32 teams play in the third phase: 12 winners from the previous phase, 16 professional teams from the ]Primera División
Primera may refer to
* Nissan Primera, a car
* Primera Air, a former airline
* Primera división (disambiguation), multiple top division football leagues
* Primera, Texas, a town in Cameron County, Texas
* Alí Primera, Venezuelan musician, compos ...
, the best relegated team of Primera División the previous season, the defending champion of the Primera División Amateur and the defending champion and runner-up of the ''Copa Nacional de Clubes''. From this point onwards, the winners play against each other in two-legged knockout phases, with the Final being played in a single match.[
The winner of the competition is also awarded a ]US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
100,000 prize.[
]
Results
Performance by club
References
{{National football Cups (CONMEBOL region)
National association football cups
Football in Uruguay