It was spring, but nobody had seen the sun in weeks. For seventeen days now, the sky was filled with fire, ash and smoke. For seventeen days, the great city of Carthage was burning. The Roman general Scipio Aemilianus Africanus watched silently. It was on his command, in 146 BC, after a siege that had lasted three years, that his legions had iniated the fire that was to destroy Carthage, the city that had been Rome’s greatest enemy for over a century.
And as Scipio watched, he started to cry.
He sank into a silence, which he ended by quoting two lines from Homer’s Illiad.
“A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish,
And Priam and his people shall be slain.”
It wasn’t for Carthage’s sake that Scipio cried and quoted Homer. In the flames that engulfed Carthage, he saw the flames that would one day engulf the city of Rome. He realized that all great things eventually fall, and so Scipio wept for the inevitable end of Rome itself.
Exactly 2127 years later, Boca Juniors and River Plate, the two titans of Argentinian club football, had just completed another successful season of football. Boca, spurred forward by a young Diego Armando Maradona, had won the national league, while River, which had responded to Boca’s acquisition of Maradona by signing Mario Kempes, had laid claim on the Metropolitan championship of greater Buenos Aires.
While the fans were celebrating these victories, more keen observers were paying attention to the list of clubs which had suffered relegation. On that list was San Lorenzo, 11-time champions of Argentina. Like Scipio had experienced, the presidents of Boca and River saw their initial delight about the removal of a rival quickly replaced by a sudden apprehension. If such a successful club as San Lorenzo – whose most famous supporter, by the way, happens to be current Pope Franciscus – could find itself relegated after a single unfortunate season, might not River and Boca one day find themselves in the same position?
Something, they realized, had to be done. The issue might not have seemed an urgent one in 1981, but one year later, Boca and River enjoyed far less successful seasons. Both clubs failed to qualify for the KO phase of the national championship, and enjoyed a disappointing campaign in the Metropolitan championship. Boca ended third. River, having sold Kempes, Passarella and Ramon Diaz, finished only 10th.
In 1983, the downward trend continued. Again no succes in the national league. And again no succes in the equally prestigious Metropolitan league. Boca, now without Maradona, ended on a 7th spot.
River Plate fared worse. Far worse. They finished 19th.
A place that meant instead relegation.
At least it used to mean that, under the previous rules. But not under the new ones. Using their influence with the Argentine FA, the big clubs had agreed upon new relegation rules for the 1983 season. No longer would one season decide who would relegate. Instead, an average table would be calculated over five seasons. The teams with the worst five-year averages would relegate.
River was rescued. Call it cheap bending of the rules to favour the big clubs, but River was saved by its own foresight.
At least for now.
In 2011, after 3 successive poor seasons, River Plate finally did relegate. Scipio could have told you: all great things eventually fall.
