2017–18 Guatemalan Liga Nacional

Liga Nacional de Fútbol de Guatemala
Season	2017–18
Champions	Apertura:; Antigua (3rd title) ; Clausura:; Guastatoya (1st title)
Champions League	TBD
CONCACAF League	None due to FIFA suspension
Matches played	72
Goals scored	174 (2.42 per match)
Biggest home win	Comunicaciones 5-1 Marquense; (23 September 2017)
Biggest away win	Marquense 0-7 Municipal ; (2018)
	← 2016–17 2018–19 →

The 2017–18 Liga Nacional de Fútbol de Guatemala season is the 20th season in which the Apertura and Clausura season is used. The season began on 28 July 2017 and will ended in May 2018.

Format

The format for both championships are identical. Each championship will have two stages: a first stage and a playoff stage. The first stage of each championship is a double round-robin format. The teams that finish first and second in the standings will advance to the playoffs semifinals, while the teams that finish 3–6 will enter in the quarterfinals. The winner of each quarterfinal will advance to the semifinals. The winners of the semifinals will advance to the finals, which will determine the tournament champion.

Managerial changes

Beginning of the season

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Replaced by	Date of appointment	Position in table
Malacateco		Resigned	May 2017	Mauricio Wright	May 2017	th (Clausura 2018)

During the Apertura season

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Replaced by	Date of appointment	Position in table
Sanarate	Héctor Julián Trujillo	Resigned	October 2017	Horacio Cordero	October 2017	th (Apertura 2015)
Deportivo Marquense	Óscar Ulises Sosa	Sacked	September 2017	Gabriel Castillo	September 2017	th (Apertura 2015)
Cobán Imperial	Ariel Sena	Sacked	August 2017	Fabricio Benitez	August 2017	th (Apertura 2015)
Municipal	Gustavo Machaín	Sacked	Oct 2017	Ever Hugo Almeida	Oct 2017	th (Apertura 2015)
C.D. Suchitepequez	Walter Claverí	Sacked	Oct 2017	Erick González	Oct 2017	th (Apertura 2015)

Between Apertura and Clausura seasons

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Replaced by	Date of appointment	Position in table
Municipal	Éver Hugo Almeida	Contract finished	December 2017	Hernan Medford	December 2017	and Runners up (Apertura 2017)
Suchitepéquez	Erick González	Contract finished	December 2017	Agustin Castillo	December 2017	(Apertura 2017)
Sanarate	Horacio Cordero	Resigned	December 2017	Pablo Centrone	December 2017	th (Apertura 2015)
Siquinalá	Jairo Pérez	Sacked	December 2017	Daniel Berta	December 2017	(Apertura 2017)

During the Apertura season

Team	Outgoing manager	Manner of departure	Date of vacancy	Replaced by	Date of appointment	Position in table
Suchitepéquez	Agustin Castillo	Sacked	February 2018	Eduardo Méndez	2018	th (Clausura 2018)
Xelaju MC	Ronald Gómez	Sacked	February 2018	Walter Claveri	February 2018	th (Clausura 2018)
Malacateco	Mauricio Wright	Resigned	February 2018	Ronald Gómez	February 2018	th (Clausura 2018)
Comunicaciones	Ronald González	Sacked	February 2018	Willy Coito Olivera	February 2018	(Apertura 2017)
Marquense	Gabriel Castillo	Sacked	April 2018	Aldo Da Pozzo	April 2018	th (Clausura 2018)

Apertura

The 2017 Torneo Apertura began on 28 July 2017 and will end in December 2017.

Personnel and sponsoring

Team	Chairman	Head Coach	Kitmaker	Shirt sponsor
Antigua GFC	Rafael Arreaga	Mauricio Tapia	TBD	Banrural, Horcalba, Pepsi
Cobán Imperial	Irasema Meléndez	Ariel Sena	TBD	TBD
Comunicaciones	Pedro Portilla	Ronald González	TBD	TBD
Guastatoya		Amarini Villatoro	TBD	TBD
Malacateco	TBD	Mauricio Wright	TBD	TBD
Marquense	TBD	Néstor Emilio Soria	TBD	TBD
Municipal	TBD	Gustavo Machaín	TBD	TBD
Deportivo Petapa	Mynor Morales	Ramiro Cepeda	TBD	TBD
Sanarate	TBD	Héctor Julián Trujillo
Siquinalá	TBD	Jairo Pérez
Suchitepéquez	TBD	Walter Claverí	TBD	TBD
Xelajú	TBD	Ronald Gómez	RetoSports	TBD

Table

Standings

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Antigua GFC	22	11	5	6	35	16	+19	38	Qualified to the Semifinals
2	Petapa	22	11	5	6	35	19	+16	38	Qualified to the Semifinals
3	Municipal	22	9	8	5	24	18	+6	35	Qualified to the Quarterfinals
4	Xelajú MC	22	10	5	7	30	27	+3	35
5	Cobán Imperial	22	9	8	5	28	25	+3	35
6	Guastatoya	22	9	7	6	33	21	+12	34
7	Comunicaciones	22	9	7	6	28	20	+8	34
8	Malacateco	22	7	5	10	29	29	0	26
9	Sanarate	22	7	5	10	14	22	−8	26
10	Suchitepéquez	22	6	4	12	24	43	−19	22
11	Siquinalá	22	6	2	14	19	38	−19	20
12	Marquense	22	5	5	12	18	39	−21	20

Updated to match(es) played on 26 November 2017. Source: [1]
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored.

Results

Home \ Away	ANT	COB	COM	GUA	MAL	MAR	MUN	PET	SAN	SIQ	SUC	XEL
Antigua GFC		2–0	0–0	2–1	4–0	2–1	1–1	2–0	2–0	2–0	5–0	2–0
Coban Imperial	1–1		3–2	4–2	1–0	2–0	3–1	2–2	2–0	1–1	2–1	1–1
Comunicaciones	2–1	0–0		1–0	3–0	5–1	1–1	3–1	0–1	1–0	2–0	2–1
Guastatoya	0–0	2–0	2–0		3–1	4–2	1–2	2–1	1–0	3–0	4–1	3–0
Malacateco	0–3	5–0	2–0	2–2		4–0	1–1	3–0	0–0	2–0	3–0	1–2
Marquense	2–2	1–1	2–0	1–1	1–0		1–0	0–4	0–1	1–0	2–0	1–1
Municipal	1–0	1–0	0–0	0–0	2–1	1–0		0–1	2–0	2–0	2–0	0–1
Petapa	2–0	0–0	0–0	1–0	0–1	2–0	1–1		1–1	3–0	3–0	3–0
Sanarate	0–2	0–1	1–1	1–0	1–1	0–0	2–1	0–2		1–0	2–0	2–0
Siquinalá	3–2	0–2	0–3	1–1	3–1	4–0	1–2	1–4	1–0		2–0	2–1
Suchitepéquez	1–0	2–2	2–2	1–1	3–1	3–1	1–1	1–3	1–0	2–0		4–1
Xelajú MC	1–0	1–0	2–0	0–0	0–0	2–1	2–2	2–1	4–1	4–0	4–1

Updated to match(es) played on 1 October 2017. Source: [2]
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Playoffs

Quarterfinals					Semifinals					Final

						Cobán Imperial	1	0	1
4	Guastatoya	1	0	1	1	Antigua GFC	0	1	1
5	Municipal	1	2	3							Municipal	1	1	2
											Antigua GFC	1	2	3
						Municipal	2	3	5
3	Cobán Imperial	1	2	3	2	Petapa	1	0	1
6	Xelajú MC	1	2	3

Quarterfinals

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Guastatoya	1 – 3	Municipal	1 – 1	0 – 2
Cobán Imperial	3 – 3 ^[3]	Xelajú MC	1 – 1	2 – 2

^ Cobán Imperial wins on away goals

First leg

November 29, 2017

Guastatoya	1 – 1	Municipal
Mejía 73'	Report	Pérez 63'

Estadio David Cordón Hichos

December 1, 2017

Cobán Imperial	1 – 1	Xelajú MC
Álvarez 85'	Report	Albizures 15'

Estadio Verapaz

Second leg

December 2, 2017

Municipal	2 – 0	Guastatoya
Lopez 31' Suénaga 64'	Report

Estadio El Trébol

December 4, 2017

Xelajú MC	2 – 2	Cobán Imperial
Brand 45+1', 68' (pen.)	Report	Guerra 19' (pen.), 38'

Estadio Mario Camposeco

Semifinals

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Cobán Imperial	1 – 1	Antigua GFC^[4]	1 – 0	0 – 1
Municipal	5 – 1	Petapa	2 – 1	3 – 0

^ Antigua GFC wins on away goals

First leg

December 7, 2017

Cobán Imperial	1 – 0	Antigua GFC
Lombardi 62'	Report

Estadio Verapaz

December 8, 2017

Municipal	2 – 1	Petapa
Suénaga 42' Lopez 48'	Report	López 60' (o.g.)

Estadio Mateo Flores

Second leg

December 9, 2017

Antigua GFC	1 – 0	Cobán Imperial
Herrera 74'	Report

Estadio Pensativo

December 11, 2017

Petapa	0 – 3	Municipal
	Report	Reyna 3' Martínez 63' Pérez 87'

Estadio Municipal de San Miguel Petapa

Finals

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Municipal	2 – 3	Antigua GFC	1 – 1	1 – 2

First leg

December 15, 2017

Municipal	1 – 1	Antigua GFC
Baloy 83'	Report	Lopez 47' (o.g.)

Estadio Mateo Flores

Referee: Walter Lopez Castellanos

Second leg

December 17, 2017

Antigua GFC	2 – 1	Municipal
Mena 16' Díaz 52'	Report	Reyna 41'

Estadio Pensativo

Apertura 2017 champions
Antigua GFC 3rd title

Clausura

The 2018 Torneo Clausura is expected to begin in January 2018 and end in May 2018.

Personnel and sponsoring

Team	Chairman	Head Coach	Kitmaker	Shirt sponsor
Antigua GFC	Rafael Arreaga	Mauricio Tapia	TBD	Pegamex
Cobán Imperial	TBD	Fabricio Benítez	Puma	TBD
Comunicaciones	Pedro Portilla	Willy Coito Olivera	TBD	TBd
Guastatoya	Lester Rodríguez	Amarini Villatoro	TBD	TBD
Malacateco	TBD	Ronald Gomez	TBD	TBD
Marquense	TBD	Aldo Da Pozzo	TBD	TBD
Municipal	Gerardo Villa	Hernán Medford	TBD	TBD
Deportivo Petapa	TBD	Ramiro Cepeda	TBD	TBD
Sanarate	TBD	Pablo Centrone
Siquinalá	TBD	Daniel Berta
Suchitepéquez	TBD	Othoniel Arce	TBD	TBD
Xelajú	TBD	Wálter Claverí	RetoSports	TBD

Table

Standings

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Sanarate	22	11	7	4	29	14	+15	40	Qualified to the Semifinals
2	Cobán Imperial	22	12	3	7	32	21	+11	39	Qualified to the Semifinals
3	Guastatoya	22	11	5	6	27	18	+9	38	Qualified to the Quarterfinals
4	Antigua GFC	22	11	4	7	42	34	+8	37
5	Xelajú MC	22	9	4	9	31	31	0	31
6	Siquinalá	22	8	7	7	20	22	−2	31
7	Comunicaciones	22	8	5	9	22	26	−4	29
8	Petapa	22	9	2	11	27	33	−6	29
9	Municipal	22	8	4	10	34	28	+6	28
10	Suchitepéquez	22	7	4	11	29	36	−7	25
11	Malacateco	22	7	4	11	25	32	−7	25
12	Marquense	22	4	5	13	16	39	−23	17

Source: ^{[citation needed]}

(May 07, 2018) Publication of the date=15/04/2018 page 60

Results

Home \ Away	ANT	COB	COM	GUA	MAL	MAR	MUN	PET	SAN	SIQ	SUC	XEL
Antigua GFC		1–3	1–2	1–1	4–3	4–1	3–2	1–2	2–0	2–0	2–3	3–1
Cobán Imperial	2–1		2–1	2–0	3–1	1–1	3–1	4–2	0–0	2–0	4–2	2–1
Comunicaciones	0–2	1–0		0–2	2–0	2–1	0–1	3–2	1–1	0–0	1–0	2–0
Guastatoya	3–2	1–0	1–0		3–0	2–0	2–0	1–0	2–1	1–1	1–2	3–1
Malacateco	0–1	1–0	3–0	2–1		2–0	2–2	1–0	3–3	2–0	1–0	2–2
Marquense	2–2	0–0	0–1	1–1	1–0		0–7	2–1	2–1	1–2	2–1	1–2
Municipal	1–2	0–1	1–1	1–0	2–0	4–1		4–0	0–2	0–1	2–0	2–3
Petapa	2–2	2–1	2–1	0–1	2–1	1–0	0–1		1–0	3–0	2–3	2–0
Sanarate	0–0	1–0	0–0	1–1	1–0	3–0	3–0	4–0		1–0	1–0	1–0
Siquinalá	1–2	2–0	1–1	1–0	0–0	1–0	2–1	0–0	1–1		2–0	2–1
Suchitepéquez	1–3	1–0	3–2	2–0	3–1	0–0	0–0	2–3	1–3	1–1		1–1
Xelajú MC	3–0	1–2	3–1	0–0	2–0	1–0	2–2	1–0	0–1	2–1	4–3

Updated to match(es) played on 2017. Source: [5]
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Playoffs

Quarterfinals					Semifinals					Final

						Sanarate	1	1	2
4	Antigua GFC	0	0	0		Xelajú MC	2	1	3
5	Xelajú MC	2	1	3							Xelaju MC	1	0	1
											Guastatoya	1	2	3
						Cobán Imperial	0	0	0
3	Guastatoya	1	4	5		Guastatoya	1	0	1
6	Siquinalá	1	0	1

Quarterfinals

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Antigua GFC	0 – 3	Xelajú MC	0 – 2	0 – 1
Guastatoya	5 – 1	Siquinalá	1 – 1	4 – 0

First leg

May 11, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Xelajú MC	2 – 0	Antigua GFC
Mario Castellanos 14' Jorge Mario Ortiz 18'		None

Estadio Mario Camposeco, Quetzaltenango

May 10, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Siquinalá	1 – 1	Guastatoya
Oscar Martinez 72'		Jose Corena 14'

Second leg

May 14, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Antigua GFC	0 – 1	Xelaju MC
None		Juan Carlos Silva 90'

Estadio Pensativo, Antigua

Xelaju won 3-0 on aggregate.

May 13, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Guastatoya	4 – 0	Siquinalá
Angel Rodriguez 13' 65' Fredy Orellana 74' Jorge Vargas 84'		None

Estadio David Cordón Hichos, Guastatoya

Guastatoya won 5-1 on aggregate.

Semifinals

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Sanarate	2 – 3	Xelajú MC	1 – 2	1 – 1
Cobán Imperial	0 – 1	Guastatoya	0 – 1	0 – 0

First leg

May 18, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Xelajú MC	2 – 1	Sanarate
Mario Castellanos 39' Jorge Mario Ortiz 44'		Erickson Pinzon 76'

Estadio Mario Camposeco, Quetzaltenango

May 18, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Guastatoya	1 – 0	Cobán Imperial
Omar Dominguez 88'		None

Estadio David Cordón Hichos, Guastatoya

Second leg

May 20, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Sanarate	1 – 1	Xelajú MC
Kevin Elias 60'		Jorge Mario Ortiz 70'

Estadio Municipal de Sanarate, Sanarate

Xelajú MC won 3-2 on aggregate.

May 21, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Cobán Imperial	0 – 0	Guastatoya
None		None

Estadio Verapaz Jose Angel Rossi, Cobán

Guastatoya won 1-0 on aggregate.

Finals

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Xelaju MC	1 – 3	Guastatoya	1 – 1	0 – 2

First leg

May 23, 2018

TBA UTC−6

Xelaju MC	1 – 1	Guastatoya
Héctor Moreira 47'	[6]	Ángel Rodriguez 64'

Estadio Mario Camposeco, Quetzaltenango

Second leg

May 2018

TBA UTC−6

Guastatoya	2 – 0	Xelaju MC
Jorge Vargas 23' Fredy Orellana 70'	[7]	None

Estadio David Cordón Hichos, Guastatoya

Clausura 2018 champions
Guastatoya 1st title

List of foreign players in the league

This is a list of foreign players in 2017-2018 season. The following players:

have played at least one apertura game for the respective club.
have not been capped for the Guatemala national football team on any level, independently from the birthplace

A new rule was introduced a few season ago, that clubs can only have five foreign players per club and can only add a new player if there is an injury or player/s is released.

Antigua GFC

Agustin Herrera
Alejandro Diaz
José Antonio Mena
Adrián De Lemos Calderón
Allan Miranda
Fabián Arsenio Castillo
Manfred Russell
Devaughn Elliot

Coban Imperial

Maximiliano Lombardi
Ignacio Flores
Álvaro García
Victor Guay

CSD Comunicaciones

Javier Irazún
Manfred Russell
Isaac Acuna
Cesar Morales
Emiliano Lopez
Diego Estrada
Éric Scott

Guastatoya

Josue Flores
Omar Dominguez
Miguel Puglia
Jose Coreno
Aaron Navarro
José Gabriel Ríos

Deportivo Malacateco

Rafael Lezcano
Jhon Hurtado
Juan Camilo Aguirre
Anllel Porras Conejo

Deportivo Marquense

Gerardo Putten
Juan Osorio Tobón
Danilo Suarez
Jonathan Piñeiro Correa

(player released during the Apertura season) (player released between the Apertura and Clausura seasons) (player released during the Clausura season)

CSD Municipal

Deportivo Petapa

Víctor Bolivar
Janderson Pereira
Juliano Rangel
Francois Swaby
Hugo Acosta
Rodrigo Cubilla

Sanarate

Juan Lovato
William Zapata

Siquinalá

Quiarol Arzu
Cesar García
Verny Scott
Diego Sanchez Corrales
Pablo Mingorance

CD Suchitepéquez

Kevin Santamaria
Jesus Lozano
Ze Paulo
Othoniel Jaramillo

Club Xelajú MC

Vladimir Castellon
Juan Carlos Silva
Juan Yax
Brayan Adan Martinez

Aggregate table

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Antigua GFC	44	22	9	13	77	50	+27	75
2	Cobán Imperial	44	21	11	12	60	46	+14	74
3	Guastatoya	44	20	12	12	60	39	+21	72	2019 CONCACAF Champions League
4	Petapa	44	20	7	17	62	52	+10	67
5	Sanarate	44	18	12	14	43	36	+7	66
6	Xelajú MC	44	19	9	16	61	58	+3	66
7	Municipal	44	17	12	15	58	46	+12	63
8	Comunicaciones	44	17	12	15	50	46	+4	63
9	Malacateco	44	14	9	21	54	61	−7	51
10	Siquinalá	44	14	9	21	39	60	−21	51
11	Suchitepéquez	44	13	8	23	53	79	−26	47	Relegation to 2017-2018 Primera División de Ascenso
12	Marquense	44	9	10	25	34	78	−44	37	Relegation to 2017-2018 Primera División de Ascenso

Updated to match(es) played on May 7, 2018. Source: [8]
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored.

CONCACAF Champions League playoff

After the suspension of the National Football Federation of Guatemala was lifted by FIFA in June 2018, it was decided that the representative of Guatemala in the 2019 CONCACAF Champions League would be decided by a two-legged playoff between the 2017 Apertura champions (Antigua GFC) and the 2018 Clausura champions (Guastatoya).^[1] The draw for the order of legs was held on 27 June 2018.

8 August 2018

15:30

Antigua GFC	0–1	Guastatoya
		Rodríguez 85'

Estadio Pensativo, Antigua

22 August 2018

14:30

Guastatoya	0–0	Antigua GFC

Estadio David Cordón Hichos, Guastatoya

References

^ "Antigua y Guastatoya jugarán la "serie definitiva" para ir a la Liga de Concacaf 2019". publinews.gt. 27 June 2018.

External links

[1] "Antigua y Guastatoya jugarán la "serie definitiva" para ir a la Liga de Concacaf 2019". publinews.gt. 27 June 2018.

[1]