Botafogo and Argentinos Juniors Debut in the Second Phase of the Copa Libertadores

Two of the Libertadores-winning teams debut in the second phase of the tournament this Wednesday.

A new edition of the Libertadores

The sixty-seventh edition of the most important club tournament in America will have sixteen teams in this stage: two from Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, and one from Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

With the debut of two champions, Argentinos Juniors and Botafogo, the second preliminary phase of the 2026 Copa Libertadores begins this Tuesday.

These will join the three winners of phase one, which are the Uruguayan Juventud, the Venezuelan Deportivo Táchira, and the Paraguayan 2 de Mayo, who eliminated the Ecuadorian Universidad Católica, the Bolivian The Strongest, and the Peruvian Alianza Lima, respectively.

Champions in this week's matches

Eight matches this week, two stand out ,featuring former tournament champions who are well-known in South America: Argentinos Juniors, the club where Diego Armando Maradona debuted at 15 and played between 1976 and 1980, and Botafogo, the team that catapulted Brazilian stars Garrincha and Nilton Santos.

Argentinos Juniors and Botafogo play this week

This Wednesday, the Argentine 'Bicho', coached by Nicolás Diez and 1985 Copa Libertadores champion, will visit Barcelona in the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil, which has Venezuelan César Farías on the bench and Argentine forward Darío 'el Pipa' Benedetto on the field.

On the same day, the Brazilian Botafogo, the tournament champion in 2024 and coached by the Argentine Martín Anselmi, will debut in the territory of Nacional Potosí, coached by the Bolivian Leonardo Eguez, at an altitude of 4,090 meters in the city of Potosí.

From this second stage, eight teams will advance to the third round of the tournament, where they will compete for four spots in the group stage, which will bring together a total of 32 clubs.