Primera Nacional (usually called simply Nacional B, in English "National B Division", and known as Primera B Nacional until the
2019–20 season) is the second division of the
Argentine football league system
The Argentine football league system include tournaments organised by the Argentine Football Association. Clubs affiliated to the body compete in the tournaments, which are split into categories or divisions.
Rules establish a system of promotion ...
. The competition is made up of 37 teams.
It is played by teams from all over the country. Clubs from
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
surroundings, as well as some from
Santa Fe Province, are promoted from or relegated to the
Primera B Metropolitana
Primera B Metropolitana is one of two professional leagues that form the third level of the Argentine football league system. The division is made up of 17 clubs mainly from the city of Buenos Aires and its metropolitan area, Greater Buenos Aires.
...
("Metropolitan B Division") while for teams from the other
provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
the
Torneo Federal A ("Federal A Tournament") is the next level down. In Argentine football, Nacional B is the second-highest league, and from it, the three best teams are automatically promoted to
Primera División.
Primera B Nacional games are often transmitted to Argentina and abroad on television by
TyC Sports.
History
It was created in 1986 to integrate unaffiliated clubs into the Argentine football structure, which until then had only participated in
Nacional championships of Argentina's
First Division tournament. It brought together teams from the old Primera B (until then, the second division) and
regional leagues from several Argentine provinces.
After the 1985–86 season, the Primera B Nacional became the second hierarchical league in Argentina's professional football, after the Primera División, and it is above the Torneo Federal A and the Primera B Metropolitana, the last one started to act as a third division for the teams directly affiliated to
AFA Afa or AFA may refer to:
Mythology and religion
*Afa (mythology), in the Polynesian mythology of Samoa
* Afá, a West African religion, also known as Ifá in some languages
Governmental
* Agence française anticorruption, the French Anti-Corrupti ...
.
Beginning in the 2019–20 season, the name was changed dropping the B to simply be known as Primera Nacional.
Format
Thirty-seven teams play each other once for a total of thirty-six rounds. The top-placed team will be the champion and will also earn promotion to the
Primera División. The teams placed from 2nd to 13th place will compete in the "Torneo Reducido" for the second promotion berth after the regular season ends, with the team placed 2nd entering in the third round, the team placed 3rd entering in the second round and the teams placed 4th to 13th entering in the first round.
List of champions
Since the first season held in 1986–87, the following teams have crowned champions of the division:
List of Argentine second division champions
at RSSSF
The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) is an international organization dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around the ...
;Notes
Titles by club
Seasons in Primera Nacional
Top scorers
Notes
References
External links
*
Ascenso del Interior
Interior Futbolero
Promiedos
Primera B Nacional summary
on Soccerway
{{CONMEBOL second leagues
1986 establishments in Argentina
2
Professional sports leagues in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
Sports leagues established in 1986