The 2008 Copa Libertadores was the 49th edition of the Copa Libertadores, CONMEBOL's annual international club tournament. 38 teams qualified for this tournament and 6 of them were knocked-out in the preliminary round. Due to the competition's sponsorship by the Spanish Santander Bank, it will be known as the Copa Santander Libertadores for the next five years.

Qualified teams

38 teams qualified for this edition, with 26 teams directly qualifying to the group stage and 12 having to play in the preliminary round. Seven countries sent their Apertura winners and Clausura winners for their first two berths. The remaining berth, or berths in Argentina's case, went to the best-place finishers shown by an aggregate table. Brazil's league uses a European-style format and thus does not have an Apertura and Clausura tournament. Therefore, they sent their cup winner and the best four of the Brazilian Championship. Uruguay and Ecuador had a Mini-League (Liguilla) to determine who qualify, and Mexico uses the InterLiga to determine two of its qualifiers. The last qualified team in each country played the Preliminary Round; the country who had a club win the previous edition (Argentina) had two teams in the Preliminary Round because the defending champion automatically qualifies.Qualifying Methods

Country	Team	Qualify method
5+1 berths	Boca Juniors	Copa Libertadores 2007 defending champions
	Estudiantes de La Plata	2006 Apertura winners
	San Lorenzo	2007 Clausura winners
	River Plate	2006-07 season 4th place
	Arsenal	2006-07 season 5th place
	Lanús	2006-07 season 6th place
3 berths	Club Bamin Real Potosí	2007 Apertura winners
	San José	2007 Clausura winners
	La Paz	Apertura and Clausura Runner-ups Playoff winners
5 berths	São Paulo FC	Campeonato Brasileiro Série A 2007 winners
	Fluminense	Copa do Brasil 2007 winners
	Santos FC	Campeonato Brasileiro Série A 2007 2nd place
	Flamengo	Campeonato Brasileiro Série A 2007 3rd place
	Cruzeiro	Campeonato Brasileiro Série A 2007 5th place
3 berths	Colo-Colo	2007 Apertura winners & 2007 Clausura winners
	Universidad Católica	2007 Apertura league stage 2nd place
	Audax Italiano	2007 Clausura league stage 1st place
3 berths	Atlético Nacional	2007 Apertura & 2007 Finalización winners
	Cúcuta Deportivo	2007 season best-place finishers
	Boyacá Chicó F.C.	2007 season second best-place finishers
3 berths	LDU Quito	2007 Liguilla Final winners
	Deportivo Cuenca	2007 Liguilla Final runners-up
	Olmedo	2007 Liguilla Final 3rd place
3 invitees (CONCACAF)	Guadalajara	2006 Apertura winners
	América	2008 InterLiga winners
	CF Atlas	InterLiga 2008 runners-up
3 berths	Sportivo Luqueño	2007 Apertura winners
	Libertad	2007 Clausura winners
	Cerro Porteño	2007 season best-place finishers
3 berths	Universidad San Martín	2007 Apertura winners
	Coronel Bolognesi	2007 Clausura winners
	Cienciano	2007 season best-place finishers
3 berths	Danubio F.C.	2006-07 season winners
	Nacional	2007 Liguilla Pre-Libertadores winners
	Montevideo Wanderers	2007 Liguilla Pre-Libertadores runners-up
3 berths	Caracas FC	Apertura 2006 winners
	Maracaibo	Clausura 2007 winners
	Mineros de Guayana	2006-07 season best-place finishers

Group Stage
Boca Juniors	San Lorenzo	Fluminense	Flamengo
Estudiantes	River Plate	São Paulo	Santos
Real Potosí	Colo Colo	Atl.Nacional	LDU Quito
San José	Universidad Católica	Cúcuta	Deportivo Cuenca
U. San Martin	Sportivo Luqueño	Danubio	Caracas
Coronel Bolognesi	Libertad	Nacional	Maracaibo
Guadalajara	Club América
Preliminary Round
Arsenal	Lanús	Cruzeiro	La Paz
Audax Italiano	Boyacá Chicó	Olmedo	Cienciano
Cerro Porteño	Wanderers	Mineros	CF Atlas

Round and draw dates

The calendar shows the dates of the rounds and draw.

Date	Event
December 19 2007	The draw took place
January 29-February 12 2008	Preliminary Round
February 12-April 23 2008	Group Stage
April 30-May 7 2008	Round of 16
May 14-21 2008	Quarter-finals
May 28-June 4 2008	Semi-finals
June 11-June 25 2008	Final

Preliminary round

The teams that have qualified for the preliminary round. A total of 12 teams played in a two-legged round. 6 teams qualified for the next round. Team 1 played the first leg at home. The away goals rule was employed in this round. The preliminary round was played between January 29 and February 12.

Group Stage

A total of 26 teams qualified directly for this stage and 6 joined them from the preliminary round, making a total of 32 teams. The top two of each group qualified for the Round of 16. This stage was played between February 12 and April 23.

	Teams qualified for Round of 16
	Teams eliminated

In results tables, the home team is listed in the left-hand column.

Group 1

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Cruzeiro 6 3 2 1 11 7 +4 11 San Lorenzo 6 3 1 2 8 7 +1 10 Caracas 6 2 1 3 6 11 -5 7 Real Potosí 6 2 0 4 11 11 0 6

SLO POT CAR CRU San Lorenzo 1–0 3–0 0–0 Real Potosí 2–3 3–1 5–1 Caracas 2–0 2–1 1–1 Cruzeiro 3–1 3–0 3–0

Group 2

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Estudiantes 6 3 2 1 9 5 +4 11 Lanús 6 2 4 0 9 6 +3 10 Deportivo Cuenca 6 1 3 2 2 5 -3 6 Danubio 6 1 1 4 5 9 -4 4

EST DAN CUE LAN Estudiantes LP 2–0 2–0 0–0 Danubio 1–2 2–0 1–2 Deportivo Cuenca 1–0 0–0 1–1 Lanús 3–3 3–1 0–0

Group 3

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts CF Atlas 6 3 2 1 11 6 +5 11 Boca Juniors 6 3 1 2 12 9 +3 10 Colo-Colo 6 3 1 2 11 9 +2 10 Maracaibo 6 0 2 4 3 13 -10 2

BOC COL MAR ATL Boca Juniors 4–3 3–0 3–0 Colo-Colo 2–0 2–0 1–1 Maracaibo 1–1 1–3 1–1 Atlas 3–1 3–0 3–0

Group 4

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Flamengo 6 4 1 1 9 4 +5 13 Nacional 6 4 0 2 9 5 +4 12 Cienciano 6 2 1 3 5 9 -4 7 Coronel Bolognesi 6 0 2 4 0 5 -5 2

FLA NAC BOL CIE Flamengo 2–0 2–0 2–1 Nacional 3–0 1–0 3–1 Bolognesi 0–0 0–1 0–0 Cienciano 0–3 2–1 1–0

Group 5

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts River Plate 6 4 0 2 14 8 +6 12 América 6 3 0 3 10 10 0 9 U. Católica 6 3 0 3 6 6 0 9 U. San Martín 6 2 0 4 4 10 -6 6

RIV UC USM AME River Plate 2–0 5–0 2–1 U. Católica 1–2 1–0 2–0 U. San Martín 2–0 0–1 1–0 América 4–3 2–1 3–1

Group 6

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Cúcuta Deportivo 6 3 2 1 7 4 +3 11 Santos 6 3 1 2 13 6 +7 10 Guadalajara 6 3 0 3 8 5 +3 9 San José 6 1 1 4 4 17 -13 4

SAN CSJ CUC GUA Santos 7–0 2–1 1–0 Club San José 2–1 2–4 0–3 Cúcuta Deportivo 0–0 0–0 1–0 Guadalajara 3–2 2–0 0–1

Group 7

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts São Paulo 6 3 2 1 6 4 +2 11 Atlético Nacional 6 2 2 2 8 5 +3 8 Sportivo Luqueño 6 2 1 3 8 10 -2 7 Audax Italiano 6 2 1 3 6 9 -3 7

SPO LUQ ATN AUD São Paulo 1–0 1–0 2–1 Sportivo Luqueño 1–1 1–3 4–1 Atlético Nacional 1–1 3–0 1–1 Audax Italiano 1–0 1–2 1–0

Group 8

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Fluminense 6 4 1 1 11 3 +8 13 LDU Quito 6 3 1 2 10 5 +5 10 Arsenal 6 3 0 3 6 14 -8 9 Libertad 6 1 0 5 5 10 -5 3

FLU LIB LDU ARS Fluminense 2–0 1–0 6–0 Libertad 1–2 3–1 1–2 LDU Quito 0–0 2–0 6–1 Arsenal 2–0 1–0 0–1

Knockout stage

In the knockout stage, the teams played two games against each other on a home-and-away basis. The away goals rule was used during this stage but not in the final. If after 90 minutes of play during the 2nd leg the teams were still tied on goals, the teams then went onto a penalty shootout. Extra time was only used in the finals. The teams were seeded 1 to 8 (first placed teams of each group) and 9 to 16 (second placed teams of each group) and the ties were 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15, etc. Higher seeded teams played at home during the second leg.

Qualified teams

	Teams qualified as first place		Teams qualified as second place

Seed	Team	Pld	Pts	GF	GA	GD
1	Fluminense	6	13	11	3	+8
2	Flamengo	6	13	9	4	+5
3	River Plate	6	12	14	8	+6
4	CF Atlas	6	11	11	6	+5
5	Cruzeiro	6	11	11	7	+4
6	Estudiantes	6	11	9	5	+4
7	Cúcuta	6	11	7	4	+3
8	São Paulo	6	11	6	4	+2
9	Nacional	6	12	9	5	+4
10	Santos	6	10	13	6	+7
11	LDU Quito	6	10	10	5	+5
12	Boca Juniors	6	10	12	9	+3
13	Lanús	6	10	9	6	+3
14	San Lorenzo	6	10	8	7	+1
15	América	6	9	10	10	0
16	Atlético Nacional	6	8	8	5	+3

Bracket

Round of 16

The round of 16 was played between April 29,30 and May 1,6,8.

Quarter-finals

The quarterfinals were played between May 14, 15 and May 21, 22.

Semi-finals

The semifinals were played between May 27, 28 and June 3, 4.

Final

The first and second legs of the final were played on June 25 and July 2, respectively.

Top scorers

Updated to games played 2008-06-26

Copa Libertadores 2008 Winners
LDU Quito First Title

References

#	Name	Team	Goals
1	Salvador Cabañas	América	8
	Marcelo Moreno	Cruzeiro
4	Thiago Neves	Fluminense	7
	Martín Palermo	Boca Juniors
	Sebastián Abreu	River Plate
	Bruno Marioni	CF Atlas
7	Mauricio Molina	Santos	6
	Adriano	São Paulo
	Kléber Pereira	Santos
	Washington	Fluminense
10	Gustavo Biscayzacú	Colo-Colo	5
	Marcinho	Flamengo
	Ramires	Cruzeiro
	Luis Bolaños	LDU Quito

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