Smaller clubs rose to the fore in the Argentinian Clausura 2009 season. Low-spending Velez Sarsfield won the title, while humble Huracan came agonizingly close. Lanus and Colon stayed in the hunt until the very end. Velez Sarsfield clinched the crown after a late Maximiliano Moralez goal over Huracan on the final day of competition. Velez finished as the worthy winner. It lost only one game all season while goalkeeper German Montoya conceded a division-low 13 goals. “When we joined Velez, our aim was to fashion a team in a similar way to how the all-conquering 1990s team was built,” Velez Sarsfield coach Ricardo Gareca said.” I asked the players to draw on that aggression and that attitude, the fighting spirit that any player wearing this shirt must have. They took the message on board and we lived up to the club’s history.”
Finishing minutes away from first place, runners-up Huracan played eye-catching and expansive soccer all season. Top scorer in the division, Huracan won 12 of its 19 games. Third place went to Lanus, which earned the most points spanning the Apertura 2008 and Clausura 2009. Under the guidance of 28-year-old coach Luis Zubeldia, and with a squad of mainly home-grown players, Lanus finished just two points behind champion Velez and boasted the competition’s top scorer in Jose Sand. After scoring 15 goals in the 2008 Apertura, Sand notched 12 in the Clausura season.
While smaller clubs over-achieved in 2009, many big clubs flopped. River Plate, who finished rock bottom in the Apertura 2008, finished eighth this time around. San Lorenzo and Boca Juniors, meanwhile, ended the season in 11th and 14th respectively, with both heavyweights changing their coaches during the course of the campaign. Independiente, which has won a record seven Copa Libertadores titles, ended the club’s worst-ever season in 16th spot, while Tucuman outfit San Martin and Gimnasia de Jujuy joined the ranks of Nacional B.