The 2018

Categoría Primera B Categoría Primera B, commonly referred to as Torneo BetPlay Dimayor due to Sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by online betting company BetPlay, is the second-division association football, football league in Colombia. The tournament was inaugura ...

season (officially known as the 2018 Torneo Águila season for sponsorship reasons) was the 29th season since its founding as

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

's second division football league. The competition started on 10 February and concluded on 26 November.

Cúcuta Deportivo Cúcuta Deportivo Fútbol Club S. A. (Spanish ), commonly referred to as Cúcuta Deportivo, is a professional Colombian football club from the city of Cúcuta. Founded on 10 September 1924, it is one of the oldest active football clubs in the co ...

were the champions by defeating

Unión Magdalena Unión Magdalena () commonly known as El Unión, and nicknamed as El Ciclón Bananero (The Banana Cyclone) and also Los Samarios (The Samarios), is a Colombian football club from the city of Santa Marta, capital of the department of Magdalena De ...

3–0 on aggregate score in the final. Both teams were also promoted to the

Categoría Primera A The Categoría Primera A (), commonly referred to as Liga BetPlay Dimayor due to Sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by online betting company BetPlay, is a professional association football league in Colombia and the highest level of the Colombian ...

Format

For this season, the league returned to the 'one tournament per year' format. The season will consist of three stages. In the first stage, the 16 clubs played each other twice, once at home and once away. Similar to the 2018 Primera A season, the extra matches against a regional rival were not played. The top eight teams after the thirty rounds advanced to the semifinal round where they were sorted into two groups of four and played a double round-robin tournament group stage, with the top team of each group qualifying to the finals. The winner of the finals was crowned as the season champions and also earned promotion to the

for the 2019 season. The season runner-up would have to play the best team in the aggregate table (other than the champion) on a home-and-away basis for the second promotion berth. In case the season runner-up also ended up as the best team in the aggregate table, it would also be promoted and the promotion play-off would not be played.

Teams

16 teams took part, fourteen of them returning from last season plus

Cortuluá Cortuluá, officially named Cortuluá Fútbol Club S. A. and previously known as Corporación Club Deportivo Tuluá for short, was a Colombian football club from Tuluá, Valle del Cauca Department. It was founded in 1967 and last played in Categ ...

and Tigres, who were relegated from the 2017 Primera A. The former will return to the second tier after 3 years while the latter returned after one season in the top flight. Both teams replaced

Boyacá Chicó Boyacá is the name of a region in Colombia. It may refer to other connections to Colombia: * Battle of Boyacá * Boyacá Department (Gran Colombia) * Boyacá Department ** Boyacá, Boyacá, a municipality * Boyacá State, a former state * Puerto ...

and Leones who earned promotion at the end of the last season. a: Barranquilla used the

Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez, commonly known as Estadio Metropolitano, or colloquially, El Metro, is a multi-use All-seater stadium, all-seater association football, football stadium in Barranquilla, Colombia. It is the home stadium o ...

Barranquilla Barranquilla () is the capital district of the Atlántico department in Colombia. It is located near the Caribbean Sea and is the largest city and third port in the Caribbean region of Colombia, Caribbean coast region; as of 2018, it had a popul ...

as home stadium during the first half of the season.
b: Cortuluá used the Estadio Pascual Guerrero in

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,280,522 residents estimate by National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE in 2023. The city span ...

instead of the

Estadio Doce de Octubre Estadio Doce de Octubre is a multi-use stadium in Tuluá, Colombia. It is used mostly for football matches. The stadium has a capacity of 16,000 people and was built in 1967. Cortuluá Cortuluá, officially named Cortuluá Fútbol Club S. A. ...

Tuluá Tuluá (), is a city located in the heart of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. A major industrial and commercial center, it is the region's fourth-largest city after Cali—the department capital— Palmira and Buenaventura. Founded around 1741 by Juan ...

as home stadium during the first half of the season.

First stage

Standings

Results

Semifinals

The eight teams that advanced to the Semifinals were drawn into two groups of four teams. The winners of each group advanced to the finals.

Group A

Group B

Finals

---- ''Cúcuta Deportivo won 3–0 on aggregate.''

Aggregate table

Promotion play-off

Since the season runners-up

also ended up as the best team in the aggregate table (other than the champions), they earned automatic promotion to the

and the promotion play-off was not played.

Top goalscorers

Source
Soccerway
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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:2018 Categoria Primera B season Categoría Primera B seasons 1