League Spotlight: Greece / Super League

Though the Greek Super League is a competition for sixteen teams, historically speaking you need only concern yourself with five that have ever done anything of note. Actually, make that two. Come to think of it, in recent terms you can probably round that down to one. There, that's made things nice and simple.

Yes folks, apart from Olivia Newton-John, the only thing to come out of Greece with any lasting reputation is Olympiacos. (OK we admit - that joke works better aurally than in written text, but what the hey...)

Over the last thirteen seasons, Olympiacos has won the league twelve times (pausing only to allow Panathinaikos a moment of glory in 2004). 'Legend', as they're known with some justification, hold the record for the most title wins at 36 and as we approach the last week of the 2008/09 season, Olympiacos have already made certain of title number 37.

It's a formidable record for a team that between 1984 and 1996 only won the Alpha Ethniki (as it was known then) once. Yet from the moment the Greek championship came to life in 1927, Olympiacos quickly made their presence felt and continue to do so today.

These days, the team features the goalscoring talents of Argentinean Luciano Galletti (signed from Atletico Madrid in 2007), veteran Polish international defender Michael Zewlakow and Blackburn Rovers' very own Matt Derbyshire, loaned out to the Greek champions in January this year. He's already scored four goals in six league appearances and with that kind of goals per game average it's a wonder Blackburn haven't brought him back sooner, given their Premier League position at the moment.

Despite being the top dogs in their own country, Olympiacos struggled this season to make much of an impact in Europe. Joining the Champions League in the Third Qualifying Round, they were immediately knocked out by Cypriot team Anorthosis Famagusta, 3-1 on aggregate. Ironically, Anorthosis became the first Cypriot team to make the group stage of the Champions League and came bottom of Group B, the winners of which were Greece's second most successful team, Panathinaikos.

'The Greens' are currently third in the Super League but could overtake PAOK Saloniki to finish second if they manage to beat already-relegated OFI Crete this Sunday. Either way, they're assured a place in the complicated end of season play-offs that will determine who gets to enter next season's Champions League at the Third Qualifying Round stage.

This shouldn't pose a problem for Panathinaikos who joined the Champions League in the Second Qualifying Round this year and knocked out Dynamo Tblisi and Sparta Prague before topping Group B ahead of Inter, Werder Bremen and Anorthosis. Sadly for them, Villareal were waiting to bring that impressive run to an end in the first knockout round, but nonetheless they showed a capability to up their game when facing European opposition.

Finishing the 2008/09 Super League season with a fine run of form are the aforementioned PAOK who fell just short of getting their first title since 1985. Led by Sérgio Conceição at the ripe old age of 34, PAOK failed to grab a win over Olympiacos or Panathinaikos but have remained unbeaten at home all the while as they surged back to the top end of the Super League following their ninth place finish last season.

Elsewhere, AEK Athens look good for a Europa League place next season, largely thanks to the current top scorer in the Super League, Ismael Blanco. The Argentinean has bagged fourteen in the current campaign and with a ratio of two goals in every three games since he joined AEK in 2007, we can expect to see his star rise yet further in the future, albeit probably elsewhere in Europe.

To complete your need-to-know guide to the Greek Super League, we end with Larissa, a team that were champions once and once only back in 1988. They'll be hoping to snatch the final play-off spot ahead of Aris this weekend and should do so thanks to a squad that boasts Maciej Zurawski (recent favourite of Celtic fans) and Laurent Robert (popular with followers of Newcastle United, Portsmouth and, er, Derby).

Much more than that is largely insignificant thanks to the dominance of the big clubs in Greece. What's odd is that Greek clubs don't do better in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, given their consistency and superiority on the domestic front. With a wealth of players arriving all the time from South America, Africa and the rest of Europe, it wouldn't be so irrational to believe that that could all change in the near future, but for now it remains a league desperate to be taken seriously.

And perhaps that's just as well. There is, after all, only so many jokes involving John Travolta that a bunch of amateur writers like us can produce in one sitting.

League Spotlight: Australia / A-League

Australasia remains one of the few regions of the world not held in Football's thrall. In his book The Ball Is Round, David Goldblatt pointed to the fact that when the first Australian colonies were founded, the game of Association Football had not developed, much less officially codified. In fact Aussie Rules football was formed before Soccer. Both Australian and Association rules football share their genesis from a previous version of the game now lost to history. By the time future waves of immigrants came to the country, exporting soccer, the native code had taken hold and Football never took its place as the pre-eminent sport like in so many other lands.

However, as we know, the beauty and simplicity of Football makes it a very hard game to resist and slowly the globalisation of the game grew stronger roots Down Under. The 80' and 90's saw a stream of Australian Soccer players migrate to Europe and the Australian national team (the Socceroos) slowly began to improve. Their recent performance in the World Cup captured the imagination of many Australians and the game now probably enjoys an unprecedented level of popularity. On the back of the growth of the sport, the National Soccer League in Australia was replaced in 2005 with the A-League, a new professional league of eight teams.

The league operates a franchise system. Five of the teams formed for the inaugural A-League season were brand new clubs. Only Perth Glory, Adelaide United and Newcastle United Jets survive from the old league. The new teams were Sydney FC, Queensland Roar, Central Coast Mariners, Melbourne Victory and from New Zealand, Wellington Phoenix. Players you may recognise that have graced the fields of the A-League are Tony Vidmar, Tony Popovitch, Juninho (yes that Juninho), Danny Tiatto and Kevin Muscat.

The A-League season is divided into two parts. A 21-week regular season determines the Premier (regular season) Champion and a top four to make up the post-season culminating in a Grand Final. The four team play-off competition is a novel and different approach to the first v fourth/second v third/final system we are used to here in England. In the A-League the top two play each other in the two legged Major Semi-Final. The winner of that match progresses straight to the Grand Final and chooses the venue for the match. The loser progresses to the Preliminary Final where they will play the winner of the Minor Semi-Final which is another two legged match between the third and fourth finished teams in the Regular Season. The Preliminary Final winners then progress to the Grand Final where the A-League Championship is decided.

The system satisfies the need for a showpiece climax to the season, which is very much at the heart of Australian sporting culture. It also clearly benefits the teams that finish further up the table and therefore provides incentives for clubs to keep going until the last week rather than settling for a play-off spot and taking their foot off the gas.

The winner qualifies for the Asian Champions League along with the winner of the Regular Season. Curiously, qualifiers do not enter this tournament for a whole year. This means that the 2008 champions, Newcastle United Jets, will enter the 2009 Champions League despite finishing bottom of the current A-League season.

This season saw Melbourne Victory take the Premier title. They played runners up Adelaide United in the Major Semi and ran out 6-0 victors on aggregate. United coach Aurelio Vidmar (right) took the defeat pretty badly and went on a Keegan style post-match rant. The only thing was, rather than slagging off the opposition, he slagged off just about everyone who had ever been anywhere near the club, including himself. Fortunately for Vidmar and his players, they got another crack at getting into the Grand Final against Queensland Roar in the Preliminary Final. The Roar were the form team at the end of the Regular Season and overcame the Central Coast Mariners 4-1 on aggregate.

Many people, including me, thought the Roar would er... roar past Adelaide by the force of their own momentum while Adelaide faltered under the wight of their coaches suicidal remarks. However, where Keegan's players failed, Vidmar's players rallied to a 1-0 win and sealed a place in the Grand Final at the Telstra Dome this Saturday morning (UK time). The game will be broadcast live on Sky Sports, more details will appear in our forthcoming Weekend TV Preview.

Next season, the league will take on a further two clubs in North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United. Robbie Fowler has already signed up for the Fury and will be spending the twilight of his career expanding his already considerable property empire banging in the goals down under. Gold Coast have signed this season's A-League Golden Boot winner Shane Smeltz from Wellington Pheonix.

The standard of play? Unsurprisingly the quality does not match that of the major European leagues. However, the League is very much in its infancy and now there is a professional structure in place for young Australian sportsmen (of which there are many) to play football. Given Australia's proud sporting heritage, it may not be too long before the A-League starts to export its finest player overseas and provide the rump of a successful Socceroos team in the World Cup which, no doubt, we will never hear the end of...

League Spotlight: Mexico / Primera Division

And so we head to the far-off sultry climes of Mexico for our latest League Spotlight. We're sure for many of you the mere mention of the word 'Mexico' will conjure up numerous Technicolor-rich images of Pele and Jairzinho scoring for Brazil in 1970 (or, if you're Scottish, the image of Gerd Muller hooking the ball over Peter Bonetti's head), and so for that reason alone it's right to be focusing on this fabulous football-mad nation.

'Mad' is actually not far short of the way football is run in Mexico, as indeed can be said of many Latin American countries. For a start, each season of their top-flight league, the Primera Division, is split into two parts - the 'Apertura' ('opening') from August to December and the 'Clausura' ('closing') from January to May. We saw evidence of this system in our Uruguayan League Spotlight and of course to us Europeans it seems unnecessarily complicated, but there we are.

To add another interesting twist, the eighteen competing teams don't play in one league but are instead split into three groups of six. The best eight at the end of the Apertura or Clausura then play off in the Liguilla - effectively a series of knockout rounds to determine who wins outright.

When it comes to relegation from the Primera Division, things get really quirky. At the end of the Clausura, the team with the lowest points-per-game average from the previous three seasons gets the boot, replaced by the best team overall from the Primera Division 'A'. Sheesh, even the names of the divisions are confusing…

No matter. The 2008 Apertura recently came to an end with Toluca being crowned champions for the first time in three years. They overcame Cruz Azul 7-6 on penalties in the Liguilla Final following a 2-2 draw after extra time. It was a remarkable turnaround of fortunes for the side located to the west of Mexico City as the start of their campaign was anything but successful.

New coach Jose Manuel De La Torre struggled to get Toluca playing consistently well at first and it was only a run of five wins at the end of the campaign that saw them surge into a play-off place. Having done so, they prospered from a relatively easy quarter-final draw against UAG before battling out a tough semi-final victory over 2008 Clausura champions Santos Laguna.

Toluca could easily credit their Apertura win to two players in particular - Hector Mancilla, their Chilean striker and top scorer in the campaign with eleven goals, and goalkeeper Hernan Cristante who set a new record by keeping a clean sheet for 762 consecutive minutes. Quite an achievement for the man wearing the 125 shirt.

With the 2009 Clausura now underway, many are waiting to see if it'll be 'third time lucky' for Cruz Azul after finishing as runners-up in the last two competitions. Though historically they're one of the most successful Mexican clubs ever, they haven't won a league title since 1997 so success is considered somewhat overdue for this team from the southwest of the capital.

Mexico City is where you'll find three of the eighteen current top flight clubs, América and Pumas de la UNAM being the other two we're yet to mention. América won the Clausura in 2005 and is the richest club in the country on account of its owner having the biggest Spanish-speaking telecommunications company Televisa listed in his business portfolio.

Currently coached by former Argentine striker and Oxford United manager Ramon Diaz (we're not making this up, you know), América's most recent brush with glory came in the Final of the 2007 Clausura where they lost out to Pachuca in the Final.

UNAM, ironically, finished runners-up in the 2007 Apertura but the peak of their recent achievements was undoubtedly in 2004 when they won both league tournaments and numerous other competitions to boot. Their manager then was the star of the 1986 World Cup, Hugo Sanchez, who proved so successful that he went on to manage the national team just prior to Sven Goran Eriksson's arrival.

It's been five years since that last league win for UNAM, but that's untypical for Mexico's Primera Division. These days it's rare for any team to maintain a stranglehold over the competition as the league title changes hands time and time again.

Winning the Clausura in 2006 and 2007 was therefore something that Pachuca fans would have delighted in and it provided the basis for further success in the CONCACAF Champions League which they won in 2007 and 2008. Add to that a win in the inaugural SuperLiga in 2007 and you have a team that's as worthy of a top billing in Mexico as any other.

Pachuca currently have the best record in the 2009 Clausura after three games, and you wouldn't bet against them picking up another title when the current season ends in the summer. Just behind them in the overall rankings at the moment and looking for a return to better times is Guadalajara. Winners of a record eleven championships, the club from the north-west of Mexico that consists only of Mexican-born players have found success hard to come by recently, save for an Apertura title in 2006.

Their difficulty over the last few seasons has been to reach the Liguilla Final and have come unstuck regularly in the play-offs leading up to it. In the 2008 Apertura, they didn't even make the play-offs, but this may well turn out to be a blip as their current form suggests another title challenge could be on the cards.

Elsewhere in Mexico you'll find various other clubs who rise and fall on the tide of success. Monterrey, once managed by Daniel Passarella, are arguably at the top of that list. Their last piece of silverware came from a Clausura win in 2003 but in the last few competitions they've been among the lower placed teams and run the risk of incurring a possible drop into Primera 'A' at some point soon.

Atlante, on the other hand, were a team struggling to even get into the Primera Division a decade ago, but a series of behind the scenes changes led the club back to the big time culminating in a 2007 Apertura win. Their immediate future looks assured as a team challenging for trophies and it's this ability to survive, adapt and ultimately succeed that so many clubs in Mexico are capable of.

Ironically the national team must also now do the same. Under Sven Goran Eriksson's tutelage, Mexico have won just four games out of nine and only just scraped through into the final qualifying round for the 2010 World Cup. Whether Mexico can make it to South Africa remains to be seen, but the exciting and varied club football that goes on week in, week out will never be in doubt. The Primera Division in the land of the Aztecs is a fascinating one to behold and if there was any justice in the world would have a much higher profile here in Europe than it's had up until now.

League Spotlight: France / Ligue 1 / Le Championnat

Our first League Spotlight of the year focuses on France as Some People Are On The Pitch checks out Ligue 1 and asks the vexed question 'Can anyone challenge Lyon for the title?' Then, once we've answered with an emphatic 'Yes', we'll have a look at some of the other great clubs in Le Championnat, a league so good they named it twice.

It is impossible to start any round-up of French football with any other team except Lyon (seriously - I checked). It's also illegal for any Englishman to write about the French without referring to at least one tired cliché based on a national stereotype, so be warned.

The current French champions are leading the table once more, despite a recent blip in form. Recent defeats to Nantes and PSG plus goalless draws with Marseilles and Valenciennes has given the pretenders to their throne some hope. However, OL entered the Christmas break with a win at Caen. Furthermore with the Champions League group stages now successfully negotiated, top scorer Karim Benzema and the gang have a clear run until late February which should be plenty of time in which to get a stack of points under their belts.

One of the more interesting facts about Lyon's seven year 'Reign of Terror' is that they've gone through four different coaches in that time. Claude Puel is the latest, replacing Alain Perrin. You'd think that consistency at the coaching level would have been key to their success. Some credit should got to the Lyon board who, no doubt, have put their Champions League revenue to good and maintained their dominance. Another factor could be the decline of their rivals.

It has been a decidedly ropey 21st Century for Marseille. Once the daddies of French football, OM's decline can be traced back to the misdeeds of former president Bernard Tapie. Under the charismatic businessman, Marseille won the European Cup in 1993 (beating AC Milan in the Final). Unfortunately, allegations of corruption and match fixing meant the club were stripped of their French championship and were subsequently relegated. Worse was to follow after they signed former Millwall and Chelsea striker Tony Cascarino.

Since then, Marseille have never been able to hit the heights of before. In the early noughties they finished fifteenth for two consecutive years and have only finished in the Champions League places three times since the turn of the decade, two of those occasions being the last two seasons. Currently, OM lie fifth in the table, only three points off the leaders.

Above them are Paris Saint Germain. The capital's only top flight club are perennial under-achievers and rarely live up to the expectations that befit a club in their location. While they have done OK in the cup competitions, the closest PSG have come to winning the league was in 2000 and 2004 when they finished second. However, coach Paul Le Guen has slowly turned the club around and while a tilt at the top spot seems unlikely, they will fancy themselves to finish in those precious top three places.

That is, of course, if they can get past Stade Rennes who have only lost once so far this season. Rennes are on a roll, however their greatest concern is all those draws. Ten of their 19 games have ended in stalemate and coach Guy Lacombe will need to get a little more out of them if they are to truly live the dream.

Just one point above Rennes in second are Bordeaux. Laurent Blanc's team have enjoyed their season in the Champions League. Assuming they can keep hold of their manager, Bordeaux look well placed to challenge Lyon's hegemony.

Another team to look out for is St Etienne. This famous name of the past and ten times League Champions are not the force they were. However they enjoyed a brief renaissance last season and finished fifth, qualifying for the UEFA Cup. Unfortunately Les Verts had a terrible start to the season and have lost 12 games so for this campaign, only one less than bottom club Le Havre. Despite all his good work last time around, their coach Laurent Roussey was sacked and replaced by Alain Perrin. To his credit the former Pompey boss is turning things around and Saint-Etienne have one three from their last four. Nevertheless, they sit perilously above the drop zone with only Valenciennes , Sochaux and Le Havre beneath them.

Notable players in France include the aforementioned Benzema at Lyon along with Hatem Ben Arfur at Marseilles. Ligue 1's top scorer is Andre Pierre Gignac who plays for Toulouse. There is, however, a fantastic story in 30 year old striker Steve Savidan at Caen.

Savidan was a journeyman lower division striker for many years. In 2004 he pitched up at Valenciennes who were a third tier club at the time. Three seasons and forty two goals later, Savidan was a top flight striker and moved to Caen in a deal worth around £4 million. In November last year he made his debut for France as a substitute in Les Bleus' 0-0 draw with Uruguay. Quite a story.

Are you a fan of Ligue 1? Who is your team in France and which players do you rate? Fill in the gaps in our knowledge and leave us a comment...

League Spotlight: Czech Republic / Gambrinus Liga

Time now for us to shine our League Spotlight on another country and today our subject is the Czech Republic.

Yes, the Czech Republic - birthplace of the Skoda motor car, Martina Navratilova and most importantly Jan Hammer. There's more to the country than that, though. The Czech's have a long history of football playing which occasionally bubbles up into some notable high points. As Czechoslovakia, they won the European Championship in 1976 and after the split from Slovakia they were runners-up in the 1996 equivalent.

But what about the clubs - what have they ever achieved and who are the big teams to follow at the present time? Join us as we give you all the key facts you need to know with the aid of our handy SPAOTP Czech List... (Oh go on then, groan if you must...)

Fact #1: Top flight Czech clubs play in the Gambrinus Liga. To be honest, we're not quite sure what Gambrinus is or what relevance it has to the Czech Republic, but at least it makes a change from being called 'Prymera Leega' or some other variation on the norm.

The Gambrinus Liga comprises of the best 16 clubs the country can muster and amongst them are a few names that are undeniably well known along with quite a lot that you won't have even heard of.

Fact #2: Currently top of the league are Slavia Prague, one of four clubs based in and around the capital.

Fact #3: Slavia are the reigning Gambrinus Liga champions and managed to reach the group stages of the Champions League last season too. Unfortunately for them, they were in the same group as Sevilla (who went on to win the group) and Arsenal (eventual group runners-up) who spanked them 7-0 at the Emirates Stadium. A good campaign while it lasted, then.

Think of any famous Czech players and the chances are they once played for Slavia. Karel Poborsky, Pavel Kuka, Patrik Berger... they've all been there - in fact one well-known player, Vladimir Smicer, has even gone back there. The former Liverpool midfielder started his career with The Sewns back in 1992 and returned to his first club at the tender age of 34 last year.

Having just passed the half-way mark in the 2008-09 league season, Slavia are already six points clear at the top of the table and have only lost one of their sixteen games so far. Immediately behind them in second place are the little known Mlada Boleslav, situated just north-east of the capital.

Fact #4: From 1919 and for a thirty year period, Mlada Boleslav were known as Aston Villa Mlada Boleslav. Extensive research on our part could not unearth the reason why - not even the official club website could throw any light on it. If anyone knows the answer, let us know through the usual channels, won't you?

Following on behind in third place at the moment are Banik Ostrava who, coincidentally, played Aston Villa in the 1990 UEFA Cup competition. They were beaten in the First Round that season and the same fate met them this season too, losing 2-1 on aggregate to Spartak Moscow. Banik won the Gambrinus Liga back in 2003-04 and though they've not come close before or since, you get the feeling they're not a team to be written off lightly.

Some ten points from the summit at present are Slavia's closest rivals, Sparta Prague. Sparta are regular participants in the Champions League and like Slavia can boast many a well-known name to have graced the national team. From Oldrich Nejedly (top scorer in the 1934 World Cup) through to Tomas Skuhravy and Tomas Repka, they've all pulled on the red shirts of Sparta - even the wonderfully named Petr Gabriel, who, no doubt, is still telling fans he won't be reuniting with Genesis as we speak.

Fact #5: Starting from 2001, Sparta have won the Gambrinus Liga in every odd-numbered year. Therefore if you're the gambling type, now might be a good time to impress your local bookie by betting on them to win at the Czech league title at the end of the current season.

Since the Gambrinus Liga started back in 1993, only four clubs have won the prestigious title and the only one of those we haven't covered so far are Slovan Liberec - currently fifth in the table. They were the first club from outside of Prague to win the league in 2002 and repeated the feat in 2006. Currently without a manager, Liberec have won only one game in their last six and are in danger of being caught by the league's middle order.

Of the remaining teams that may be familiar to you, Sigma Olomouc may ring a bell, especially if you're a Kilmarnock fan. Killie were beaten 2-0 in both legs of a UEFA Cup Preliminary Round tie back in 1998.

Fact #6: Olomouc is the city in the east of the Czech Republic where you'll find Saint Wenceslas cathedral, built in commemoration of the country's main patron saint and star of that well known Christmas carol "Ding Dong Merrily On High." (No not really, but you have to admit, these facts are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel a bit…)

There's also Viktoria Zizkov - currently languishing one place off the bottom of the league table - who knocked Rangers out of the UEFA Cup First Round back in 2002. Their glory was short-lived, however, as they were relegated in 2004 and though they returned to the top flight again in 2007, it seems they may be about to head back out again based on this season's form. Three wins from a possible sixteen does not a successful outlook make in our book…

Player-wise, all clubs in the Gambrinus Liga rely heavily on home-grown talent but often contain a few token foreigners. Most of these come unsurprisingly from Slovakia but look down the squad lists and you'll see a scattering of individuals from places as diverse as Brazil and various parts of Africa.

As for European competition, only Slavia Prague have achieved anything of note this season. They, together with Sparta, were knocked out of the 2008/09 Champions League Third Qualifying Round by Fiorentina and Panathinaikos respectively. As a result of that, they both entered the UEFA Cup instead and here Sparta lost out again (this time to Dinamo Zagreb) but Slavia won their tie against Vaslui of Romania to enter the Group Stage.

By this time, Banik Ostrava had also been eliminated (2-1 on aggregate to Spartak Moscow) leaving Sparta Prague as the only remaining Czech representative in the UEFA Cup. Unfortunately even they look to be approaching the end of their European campaign - placed in Group F, they've already been beaten 1-0 by Aston Villa (yes, them again) and 2-0 by Hamburg. With one game remaining - away to Ajax - their only point thus far has come from a goalless draw away to Zilina of Slovakia and they lie bottom of the table.

And there we must leave the Gambrinus Liga and all its teams. The Winter break has now arrived and the next time they kick a ball will be on February 21st 2009. There the competition will hot up again and who knows - maybe another new name will emerge to shake up the Slavia/Sparta stranglehold. It's about as likely as a Czech team reaching the latter stages of the Champions League, but with the national team seemingly the main focus of this country, perhaps that's not important. The Czechs know how to churn out a decent player or two, and that for now will do just fine.

League Spotlight: Uruguay / Primera Division

Those of you who that have been following our regular feature 'League of the Week' will have by now spotted two things: (1) editions of 'League of the Week' have been anything but regular of late, and (2) this feature you're reading now seems to be more or less the same thing but with a different name.

There's a reason for that. We've decided to rename 'League of the Week' to 'League Spotlight' as, frankly, we couldn't keep up with the pace of researching and writing a sizeable feature like this along with all our other stuff on a weekly basis. We therefore thought we'd take a more flexible approach by bringing you the same feature whenever we could, but without any specific guarantees as to its regularity.

And with that weak excuse out of the way, let's crack on with today's League Spotlight and further to a request some time ago from Chris C Paul at Football Overdose we're on the road to Uruguay and their Primera Division...

Yes, Uruguay - twice world champions but these days an also-ran in the global game. While the national team labours on in the vague hope of capturing a qualifying berth for the 2010 World Cup, its top domestic league remains a melting pot for some of the most well-known clubs on the planet.

Back in days of yore when the champion clubs from Europe and South America played for the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, it wasn't unusual to find a Uruguayan club in the Final. Penarol appeared in three of the first seven from 1960 onwards, and two of those they won against Real Madrid and Benfica.

Nacional were the next to take part, beating Panathinaikos in 1971 and Nottingham Forest in 1980 before Penarol returned to see off Aston Villa in 1982. Both teams would enjoy one more appearance in the Final - Penarol losing 2-1 after extra time to Porto in 1987 and Nacional beating PSV Eindhoven on penalties the year after, but since then there's been nothing. Uruguayan club football, it seems, has been left behind by the rising fortunes of other countries in South America.

But is the Uruguayan First Division just a perennial two-horse race and do Penarol and Nacional still have the game by the throat these days? Not any more, so it seems, but change has only recently started to happen.

Despite Nacional or Penarol winning all but one of the league titles between 1992 and 2005, some new names are now starting to emerge. The current champions are Defensor Sporting, renowned for their ultra-defensive approach and a hot bed for talent that often finds greater exposure abroad.

Last season, they won the Torneo Apertura and went onto beat the Penarol 2-1 on aggregate in the two-legged Final.

Now at this point we should explain that the Uruguayan First Division is played out in two halves (as in many other Latin American countries). The first half of the season is called the 'Opening Tournament' (Torneo Apertura) while the teams play each other again in the second half, known as the 'Closing Tournament' (Torneo Clausura). The winners of each tournament play each other in a Final at the end of the season to decide the overall champions.

All of which is frightfully messy and not a little unnecessary, but never mind. Defensor are currently in sixth place in the Apertura, three points behind second-placed Danubio who are the only other team to break the Nacional/Penarol cycle by winning the championship in 2006/07.

Danubio can claim to have had many well known players pass through its doors over the years. One-time Middlesbrough curio Hamilton Ricard played there in their championship-winning season while the likes of Alvaro Recoba and Ruben Sosa - both legends of the national team - also donned the diagonal sash of La Franja.

They also have the current leading scorer in the Primera Division, Sergio Leal, who recently arrived from Gimnasia in Argentina and has so far scored six goals in this season's Apertura. But what of the two giants and biggest rivals in the Uruguayan top flight, Penarol and Nacional? What's to know about them?

Well Penarol, famous for their yellow and black striped shirts, are one of the oldest clubs in the world created around the workforce of the local British-owned railway company back in the late-1900's. They've been Uruguayan champions more times than any other club (36) and have been runners-up for the last two seasons.

They're obviously still a team to be reckoned with and having such strong support means they're justified in making regular use of the nearby Estadio Centenario - the monolithic stadium that staged the first World Cup Final in 1930. Not that they can call the Centenario their own, mind you - they have to share it with their fiercest rivals, Nacional.

Winners of five out of the last ten championships, Nacional are based in Montevideo... but then again so are 13 of the other 15 teams in the Primera Division. Historically speaking, it's played a big part in Uruguayan football and provided most of the players for the national teams that won the 1928 Olympic soccer tournament and the World Cup of 1930 (above left). Also, as eluded to earlier, they're the only team to win the Intercontinental Cup (World Club Cup) three times.

And to leave you in no doubt as to their credentials, Nacional are also currently top of the league, one point ahead of Danubio. So who else do we need to know about before we draw a line under this little old summary?

Well there's Liverpool... no, not that Liverpool - Liverpool FC Montevideo, so named (supposedly) because some of the club's founder members had heard of the English port and like the sound of it. They've never won the league but are currently fourth in the Apertura and managed a third place finish back in 1995. Further success is long overdue, one feels...

Then there's River Plate, third place last season and eighth at the moment, Cerro, a relatively unknown quantity but currently third in the table, and Bella Vista who won the league title once in 1990 and were third in 1998.

To be honest, there are many other teams that make up the top division in Uruguayan football, but the important ones are those listed above. Some might say even they are doomed to achieve only limited success for the simple reason that any player showing a feint glimmer of quality tends to get snapped pretty quickly by another club in another country.

A case in point can be gleaned from the team that started in Uruguay's last World Cup qualifier against Bolivia a month ago. Of the eleven players that kicked off, only two - Carlos Bueno of Penarol and Hugo Arismendi of Nacional - play their club football in the Primera Division.

And that's why there's a kind of forlorn air about Uruguayan league football. As much as the fans get behind their teams and cheer them on to their next victory or their next trophy, they must surely be aware that in the overall scheme of things, the Primera Division barely shows up on the world football radar.

Whether their star will rise again, though, one can't be sure, but at least Uruguayan club football has a proud history that many countries would yearn for. That alone is something to be rather proud of.