Competition Modus
The national championship was divided into two half-year tournaments, the Torneo Apertura and the Torneo Clausura. Each was played on a home-and-away round-robin basis. The winners of each would play for the national title in a playoff, but a team had to finish in the top 4 in both tournaments to earn the right to play the final. If the same club had won both tournaments, it would have won the national championship automatically.
Following-season Copa Libertadores berths went to each half-year tournament winner, and the best-placed team in the aggregate table. The two bottom teams on the aggregate table were relegated, but a playoff had to be played between the 10th- and 11th-placed teams since both obtained the same number of points (goal difference did not count as a tie-breaker).
Read more about this topic: 2002 Torneo Descentralizado
Famous quotes containing the words competition and/or modus:
“The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
“Passivity can be a provoking modus operandi;
Consider the Empire and Gandhi.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)