División Profesional Clausura 2026 (M)

Paraguay's first championship was played in 1906 and Guaraní won it without losing a match. Twenty-nine years later, in 1935, the country's football stopped being amateur.

From there the honours list narrowed to very few hands. Olimpia hold 48 Primera titles, Cerro Porteño 35 and Libertad 26; then comes a long drop to Guaraní's 11 and Nacional's 9. Olimpia, founded on 25 July 1902, carry the continental weight: they won the Copa Libertadores in 1979 against Boca Juniors, in 1990 against Ecuador's Barcelona and in 2002 against São Caetano, that last one on penalties, 4-2. That same 1979 closed with the Intercontinental Cup against Sweden's Malmö — 1-0 away, 2-1 at home.

And then there is the part almost nobody remembers. Two tournaments a year have existed since 1996, but for twelve seasons the second one handed out no official title. Only since 2008 have the Apertura and the Clausura crowned full champions with equal standing. Half of the championship's modern history is therefore eighteen years old.

The 2025 Clausura came down to the last matchday and to a single point. On 30 November Cerro Porteño beat Atlético Tembetary 2-0 to finish on 46; Guaraní ended on 45 and could only watch. It was Cerro's 35th title.

The 2026 Apertura was the opposite — a stroll. Olimpia closed on 49 points, 15 wins, four draws and three defeats, with 37 goals scored and 17 conceded, the best numbers in both columns. They were champions with three rounds still to play, on the day they drew 1-1 with Sportivo Ameliano on matchday 19. Nacional took second on 39 and Cerro Porteño third on 38: a ten-point gap. At the other end, Sportivo San Lorenzo managed 15 points and shipped 41 goals in 22 games. Lorenzo Melgarejo and Allan Wlk shared the scoring charts on 13 apiece.

One figure explains the year. Seven of the twelve clubs changed manager once the Apertura was already under way. Cerro Porteño got through three — Jorge Bava, Jorge Achucarro and Ariel Holan — in twenty-two rounds. Olimpia never touched theirs.

Olimpia arrive as reigning Apertura champions and without a home. Their ground, the Ueno Osvaldo Domínguez Dibb — the old Manuel Ferreira, renamed on 2 March 2024 — is to be demolished and rebuilt with a loan from Conmebol and the APF: 16,000 seats become 46,000, and it will not be finished before the end of 2029, with the 2030 World Cup waiting behind it. In the meantime Olimpia play at the Defensores del Chaco, capacity 22,000.

Pablo 'Vitamina' Sánchez stays in charge and has added the 35-year-old Argentine striker Braian Romero. Cerro Porteño, who hold the last Clausura, keep Ariel Holan and sign Agustín Almendra, a 26-year-old midfielder out of the Boca Juniors academy. Libertad change direction: Nelson Haedo Valdez takes the bench, with New Zealand defender Tim Payne and Agustín Manzur arriving. Guaraní start under Ariel Galeano.

The calendar has already booked the two big days: 24 August on matchday 6, with Olimpia at home, and 5 November on matchday 17 at the General Pablo Rojas, the largest ground in play at 45,000. Twenty rounds fit between them, and a table that does not exist yet.

The Paraguayan year hands out two identical crowns. The Apertura fills the first half and the Clausura the second — 24 July to 29 November in 2026 — and neither outranks the other: both have been full championships since 2008.

Both champions go straight into the group stage of the 2027 Copa Libertadores. The remaining places come off the year's aggregate table: the best non-champion enters Libertadores Phase 2, the next one Phase 1, and the four behind them take the Copa Sudamericana slots. With only twelve clubs in the division, as many as eight finish the year holding a continental ticket.

Relegation runs on its own clock, and slowly. The two worst three-season averages drop to the División Intermedia — points divided by matches played in the top flight. One bad year is survivable; two are not. And promoted sides carry no cushion whatsoever: General Caballero JLM and Atlético Tembetary went down in 2025, and Rubio Ñú and Sportivo San Lorenzo came up, running now with the ledger at zero.