The 2016 Copa Libertadores de América (officially the 2016 Copa Bridgestone Libertadores for sponsorship reasons) was the 57th edition of the

Copa Libertadores de América The CONMEBOL Libertadores, also known as Copa Libertadores de América (), is an annual continental club football competition organized by CONMEBOL since 1960. It is the highest level of competition in South American club football. The tourname ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

's premier club

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament organized by

CONMEBOL CONMEBOL ( ) or CSF (; ; ), is the continental governing body of football in South America and it is one of FIFA's six continental confederations. The oldest continental confederation in the world, its headquarters are located in Luque, Parag ...

. In the

finals Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

, Colombian club

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

defeated Ecuadorian club

Independiente del Valle Club de Alto Rendimiento Especializado Independiente del Valle, known simply as Independiente del Valle, is a professional football club based in Sangolquí Ecuador that currently plays in the Ecuadorian Serie A. Founded in 1958, the club plays ...

by an aggregate score of 2–1 to win their second tournament title in team history and qualify for the

2016 FIFA Club World Cup The 2016 FIFA Club World Cup (officially known as the FIFA Club World Cup Japan 2016 presented by Alibaba YunOS Auto for sponsorship reasons) was the 13th edition of the FIFA Club World Cup, a FIFA-organised international club association footbal ...

in Japan, their

first appearance In comic books and other stories with a long history, first appearance refers to the first issue to feature a fictional character. These issues are often highly valued by collectors due to their rarity and iconic status. Reader interest in fir ...

in the

FIFA Club World Cup The FIFA Club World Cup (FIFA CWC) is an international men's association football competition organised by the ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (FIFA), the sport's global sports governing body, governing body. The compe ...

. They also earned the right to play against the winners of the

2016 Copa Sudamericana The 2016 Copa Sudamericana () was the 15th edition of the Copa Sudamericana, South America's secondary club association football, football tournament organized by CONMEBOL. The 2016 Copa Sudamericana Finals, finals were originally to be played be ...

in the 2017 Recopa Sudamericana. They also automatically qualified for the 2017 Copa Libertadores group stage. River Plate were the defending champions, but were eliminated by

in the round of 16.

Teams

The following 38 teams from 11 associations (the 10 CONMEBOL members plus Mexico which were invited to compete) qualified for the tournament: *Title holders *Argentina and Brazil: 5 berths each *All other associations: 3 berths each The entry stage is determined as follows: *Second stage: 26 teams (top four teams from Argentina and Brazil, and top two teams from all other associations) *First stage: 12 teams (team with the lowest berth from each association, plus team with the second lowest berth from association of title holders)

Draw

The draw of the tournament was held on 22 December 2015, 20:30 PYST ( UTC−3), at the CONMEBOL Convention Centre in

Luque Luque () is a city in Central Department of Paraguay, part of the Gran Asunción metropolitan area. Both 1635 and 1750 have been recorded as dates of its founding. It was temporarily the capital of Paraguay in 1868 during the Paraguayan War ...

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

. Starting from this season, teams were seeded by the newly established ''CONMEBOL ranking of the Copa Libertadores'' (except for teams from Mexico which were not ranked and thus seeded last in all draws), taking into account of the following three factors: #Performance in the last 10 years, taking into account Copa Libertadores results in the period 2006–2015 #Historical coefficient, taking into account Copa Libertadores results in the period 1960–2005 #Local tournament champion, with bonus points awarded to domestic league champions of the last 10 years

Schedule

The schedule of the competition is as follows (all dates listed are Wednesdays, but matches may be played on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well). There is a one-month break between the quarterfinals and semifinals due to the Copa América Centenario held in June. ;Notes

First stage

Second stage

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

Group 7

Group 8

Final stages

Seeding

Bracket

Round of 16

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Finals

Statistics

Top goalscorers

Top assists

Prize money dispute

In January 2016, several clubs threatened to withdraw from the competition due a disagreement regarding prize money. CONMEBOL had offered a 40% increase on what was given in the 2015 edition but clubs wanted a 150% increase. On 2 February, CONMEBOL announced that the prize money paid to each club was doubled from the previous amount.

References

External links

*
Copa Libertadores 2016
CONMEBOL.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Copa Libertadores 2016 1