Boca Juniors won Argentina’s 2026 league title on Saturday, while Rosario Central, the last rival in the race, began celebrating a title it had not won.
The league awards its title, officially Campeón de Liga, to the club with the most points across the regular seasons of the year’s two tournaments, the Apertura (first half) and the Clausura (second half). The Clausura title is decided separately, in a knockout round.
What the league title adds is a place in the Supercopa Internacional, a one-off match in 2027 against the winner of the Trofeo de Campeones, the December game between the Apertura and Clausura champions. The same points table fills three of Argentina’s six places in the 2027 Copa Libertadores, South America’s top club competition, and the Apertura, Clausura and Copa Argentina (the national cup) champions take the other three. Boca, Rosario Central and Argentinos Juniors hold those three places: Boca and Central enter the group stage directly, and Argentinos starts in the second qualifying round.
Rodolfo Arruabarrena, who returned as Boca’s coach on June 18, won his first title of this second spell and the club’s first trophy in three and a half years. He told his players not to rest on it.
The Clausura knockout round picks the other champion. The top eight clubs in each of the league’s two zones play single matches, hosted by the better-placed club in the round of 16 and the quarterfinals, with extra time and penalties if needed. The round of 16 starts the weekend of Nov. 21 and 22, the quarterfinals and semifinals follow on the next two weekends, and the final is on Saturday, Dec. 12 in La Plata. The champion goes straight into the Libertadores group stage and meets Belgrano, the Apertura champion, in the Trofeo de Campeones on Dec. 19 in Córdoba.
Boca and River Plate sit in opposite halves of the bracket, so the Boca-River derby, the Superclásico, could come only in the final, which would be a third meeting this year.
Boca’s calendar is crowded. It plays Banfield in a Copa Argentina semifinal on Nov. 14 and, after it reached the final of the Copa Sudamericana, South America’s second-tier club tournament, Atlético Mineiro of Brazil in Barranquilla, Colombia, on Nov. 21. Because of that final, its Clausura round of 16 against Independiente Rivadavia at La Bombonera is on Wednesday, Nov. 25. Four more trophies are in play: the Sudamericana, the Copa Argentina (final on Dec. 2), the Clausura and, if Boca wins the Clausura, the Trofeo de Campeones.
If Boca also wins the Sudamericana final, it earns an extra Libertadores place, which frees its own table spot under the league’s rules and moves Rosario Central and Argentinos up one place each. Argentinos would then take a group-stage place instead of starting in the second qualifying round.