| Competition: | Liga 1 |
| Season: | 2019 |
| Dates: | 15 February – 15 December 2019 |
| Winners: | Binacional (1st title) |
| Relegated: | Unión Comercio Pirata |
| Matches: | 310 |
| Total Goals: | 802 |
| Continentalcup1: | Copa Libertadores |
| Continentalcup1 Qualifiers: | Binacional Alianza Lima Sporting Cristal Universitario |
| Continentalcup2: | Copa Sudamericana |
| Continentalcup2 Qualifiers: | Sport Huancayo Melgar Real Garcilaso |
| League Topscorer: | Bernardo Cuesta (27 goals) |
| Biggest Home Win: | (18 October) |
| Biggest Away Win: | Cantolao 0–4 Binacional (23 February) (5 May) Cantolao 1–5 Melgar (8 June) |
| Highest Scoring: | Mannucci 4–4 Ayacucho (16 February) |
| Prevseason: | 2018 |
| Nextseason: | 2020 |
The 2019 Liga 1 de Fútbol Profesional (known as the 2019 Liga 1 Movistar for sponsorship reasons) was the 103rd season of the highest division of Peruvian football. A total of 18 teams competed in the season, with Sporting Cristal coming in as defending champions.
Binacional were the champions, winning their first league title by defeating Alianza Lima in the finals by a 4–3 aggregate score.
The season will be divided into three stages: Torneo Apertura, Torneo Clausura, and the Playoffs.
The first and second stages will be two smaller Apertura and Clausura tournaments of 17 games each. Each team will play the other teams once during the Apertura tournament and once during the Clausura tournament in reversed order for a total of 34 matches. Points earned during the Apertura will not carry over during the Clausura. The winners of the Apertura and Clausura stages will qualify to the playoffs along with the top two teams of the aggregate table, as long as they end in the top nine of this table at the end of the season.[1]
The playoffs to decide the national champion will be contested by four teams, which will play two semifinals with the winners playing the final. In every stage of the playoffs, the teams with the most points on the aggregate table will choose which leg they play as the home team. If the teams are tied in points after the two legs of the final, a third match on neutral ground will be played to decide the national champion. If a team wins both the Apertura and Clausura, the playoffs will not be played and that team will be declared as champion.
Qualification to international competitions will be as follows: the top four teams of the aggregate table will qualify for the 2020 Copa Libertadores, while the next three best teams in that table will qualify for the 2020 Copa Sudamericana, with a fourth berth being allocated to the 2019 Copa Bicentenario winners. In case the Copa Bicentenario winners have already qualified for an international competition, the eighth best team in the aggregate table will also qualify for the Copa Sudamericana.[2] The two teams with the fewest points in the aggregate table at the end of the season will be relegated.
A total of 18 teams have been confirmed to play in the 2019 Liga 1, an increase of two teams from the previous season. The top fourteen teams in the 2018 Torneo Descentralizado will take part, along with Segunda División champions Universidad César Vallejo, Copa Perú champions Pirata, and the top two teams of the promotion play-offs (Carlos A. Mannucci and Alianza Universidad). The four promoted teams will replace Sport Rosario and Comerciantes Unidos, who were relegated to the Segunda División at the end of the previous season.
| Team | Manager | City | Stadium | Capacity[3] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15,000 | ||||
| 35,000 | ||||
| 15,000 | ||||
| 15,000 | ||||
| 20,030 | ||||
| 25,000 | ||||
| 8,000 | ||||
| 60,000 | ||||
| 5,000 | ||||
| 42,056 | ||||
| 17,000 | ||||
| 20,000 | ||||
| 18,000 | ||||
| 12,000 | ||||
| 25,000 | ||||
| 18,000 | ||||
| 80,093 | ||||
| 6,300 | ||||
| Team | Outgoing manager | Manner of departure | Date of vacancy | Position in table | Incoming manager | Date of appointment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Torneo Apertura | ||||||
| Real Garcilaso |  Víctor Reyes | End of contract | 25 November 2018 | Pre-season | Héctor Tapia | 17 December 2018[4] |
| Binacional | Mario Flores | 25 November 2018 | Javier Arce | 19 January 2019[5] | ||
| Pirata | Juan Carlos Bazalar | 2 December 2018[6] | Pablo Zegarra | 21 December 2018[7] | ||
| Melgar |  Hernán Torres | Mutual consent | 11 December 2018[8] |  Jorge Pautasso | 26 December 2018[9] | |
| Alianza Lima | Pablo Bengoechea | End of contract | 16 December 2018[10] | Miguel Ángel Russo | 28 December 2018[11] | |
| Sporting Cristal | Mario Salas | Signed by Colo-Colo | 18 December 2018[12] | Alexis Mendoza | 7 January 2019[13] | |
| Sporting Cristal | Alexis Mendoza | Mutual consent | 5 February 2019[14] | Claudio Vivas | 8 February 2019[15] | |
| Sport Boys | Jesús Álvarez | Sacked | 10 March 2019[16] | 18th | Manuel Fernández | 10 March 2019[17] |
| Real Garcilaso | Héctor Tapia | Mutual consent | 22 March 2019[18] | 5th | Juan Reynoso | 26 March 2019[19] |
| Sport Huancayo | Marcelo Grioni | Sacked | 26 March 2019[20] | 17th | Cristian Arrasada (caretaker) | 26 March 2019[21] |
| Sport Huancayo | Cristian Arrasada | End of caretaker spell | 31 March 2019 | 17th | Carlos Ramacciotti | 31 March 2019[22] |
| Alianza Lima | Miguel Ángel Russo | Resigned | 26 April 2019[23] | 11th | Víctor Reyes (caretaker) | 27 April 2019[24] |
| Pirata | Pablo Zegarra | Mutual consent | 29 April 2019[25] | 17th | Carlos Fernández (caretaker) | 29 April 2019 |
| Unión Comercio | Marcelo Vivas | 5 May 2019[26] | 15th | Ítalo Manso (caretaker) | 5 May 2019[27] | |
| Carlos A. Mannucci | José Soto | 13 May 2019[28] | 14th | Salomón Paredes (caretaker) | 13 May 2019 | |
| Melgar | Jorge Pautasso | Resigned | 21 May 2019[29] | 13th | Karlo Calcina (caretaker) | 21 May 2019[30] |
| Universitario | Nicolás Córdova | Mutual consent | 27 May 2019[31] | 13th | Juan Pajuelo (caretaker) | 27 May 2019 |
| Alianza Lima | Víctor Reyes | End of caretaker spell | 31 May 2019 | 5th | Pablo Bengoechea | 26 May 2019[32] |
| Carlos A. Mannucci | Salomón Paredes | 2 June 2019 | 14th | Pablo Peirano | 2 June 2019[33] | |
| Torneo Clausura | ||||||
| Universitario | Juan Pajuelo | End of caretaker spell | 7 June 2019 | Pre-tournament | Ángel Comizzo | 6 June 2019[34] |
| Melgar | Karlo Calcina | 8 June 2019 | Diego Osella | 14 June 2019[35] | ||
| Pirata | Carlos Fernández | 11 June 2019 | Miguel Ángel Arrué | 19 June 2019[36] | ||
| Sport Boys | Manuel Fernández | Resigned | 3 July 2019[37] | Marcelo Vivas | 9 July 2019[38] | |
| Unión Comercio | Ítalo Manso | End of caretaker spell | 12 August 2019 | 15th | Walter Aristizábal | 13 August 2019[39] |
| Real Garcilaso | Juan Reynoso | Signed by Puebla | 20 August 2019[40] | 15th | Ariel Paz (caretaker) | 20 August 2019 |
| Binacional | Javier Arce | Resigned | 3 September 2019[41] | 9th | Javier Uturunco (caretaker) | 4 September 2019 |
| Sporting Cristal | Claudio Vivas | Mutual consent | 10 September 2019[42] | 6th | Manuel Barreto | 12 September 2019[43] |
| Real Garcilaso | Ariel Paz | End of caretaker spell | 12 September 2019 | 17th | Javier Arce | 12 September 2019[44] |
| Pirata | Miguel Ángel Arrué | Sacked | 12 September 2019[45] | 16th | Carlos Cortijo | 12 September 2019 |
| Binacional | Javier Uturunco | End of caretaker spell | 17 September 2019 | 11th | Roberto Mosquera | 17 September 2019[46] |
| UTC | Franco Navarro | Sacked | 23 September 2019[47] | 18th | Gerardo Ameli | 26 September 2019[48] |
| Melgar | Diego Osella | 27 October 2019[49] | 8th | Marco Valencia | 28 October 2019[50] | |
Both stages (Torneo Apertura and Torneo Clausura) of the 2019 season were aggregated into a single league table throughout the season to determine two of the teams that will qualify for the playoffs and the Copa Libertadores and three Copa Sudamericana qualifiers, as well as those to be relegated at the end of the season.
Alianza Lima won 2–1 on aggregate and advanced to the Finals.
It is the first Liga 1 final to incorporate the use of the video assistant referee (VAR) review system.
Binacional won 4–3 on aggregate.
| Rank | Name | Club | Goals | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| align=center | 1 | Bernardo Cuesta | Melgar | align=center | 27 | |||||
| align=center | 2 | Donald Millán | Binacional | align=center | 23 | |||||
| align=center | 3 | Kevin Quevedo | Alianza Lima | align=center | 17 | |||||
| 4 | Mauricio Montes | Ayacucho | 15 | |||||||
| Santiago Silva | Universidad César Vallejo | |||||||||
| 6 | Sebastián Gularte | Unión Comercio | 14 | |||||||
| Carlos Neumann | Sport Huancayo | |||||||||
| align=center | 8 | Cristian Palacios | Sporting Cristal | align=center | 13 | |||||
| align=center | 9 |  Joffre Escobar | Universidad San Martín | align=center | 12 | |||||
| align=center | 10 | Aldair Rodríguez | Binacional | align=center | 11 | - | 11 | Danilo Carando | Real Garcilaso | 10 |
| Germán Denis | Universitario | |||||||||
| 13 | Jeremías Bogado | Deportivo Municipal | 9 | |||||||
| Alejandro Hohberg | Universitario | |||||||||
| Osnar Noronha | Carlos A. Mannucci | |||||||||
| 16 | Sergio Almirón | UTC | 8 | |||||||
| Lionard Pajoy | Alianza Universidad | |||||||||
| Jarlín Quintero | UTC | |||||||||
| Felipe Rodríguez | Alianza Lima--> |
Source: ADFP
On 10 January 2020, the Liga 1 announced the nominees for the 2019 Liga 1 awards.[51] The award ceremony was held on 16 January 2020, 19:00 PET (UTC−5), at the Teatro Municipal de Lima.[52] The winners were chosen based on voting by coaches and captains of Liga 1 teams as well as by 60 journalists. Votes from Liga 1 fans on social media were also considered.[51] [53]
| Award | Winners | Club | Nominees | Club |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best player of the year | Donald Millán | Binacional | Kevin Quevedo | Alianza Lima |
| Christofer Gonzales | Sporting Cristal | |||
| Best goalkeeper (shared) | Manuel Heredia | Carlos A. Mannucci | Jonathan Medina | Sport Boys |
| José Carvallo | Universitario | |||
| Newcomer Player | Martín Távara | Sporting Cristal | Andy Polar | Binacional |
| Aldair Fuentes | Alianza Lima | |||
| Best Coach | Pablo Bengoechea | Alianza Lima | Roberto Mosquera | Binacional |
| Javier Arce | ||||
| Goal of the Year | Juan Pablo Vergara | Binacional | Kevin Quevedo | Alianza Lima |
| Mario Ramírez | Pirata |
The following awards were also awarded:
The best XI team of the 2019 Liga 1 season was also announced during the award ceremony.[54] [55]