1968 Campeonato Gaúcho

Campeonato Gaúcho

Season	1968
Dates	4 February – 28 July
Champions	Grêmio (19th title)
Relegated	Riograndense (RG) Guarany (BA)
Matches played	149
Goals scored	456 (3.06 per match)
← 1967 1969 →

The 1968 Campeonato Gaúcho was the 48th season of Rio Grande do Sul's top association football league. Grêmio won their 19th title. The league expanded to eighteen teams: the twelve clubs from last season were joined by six teams from last year's Promotion Tournament. It is unknown how these six teams were chosen: Ypiranga, São Paulo, Santa Cruz and São José were among the championship's top six teams, but Cruzeiro and Flamengo were eliminated in the first stage.

Format

The championship's format changed for the first time since 1961 due to its expansion, not without controversy. The league was divided in three stages, as follows:

• Preliminary stage: clubs were divided in two groups of nine teams each, playing a single round-robin against same group teams. The bottom two advanced to the relegation tournament while the top seven clubs played another single round-robin against each other maintaining their previous results.
• Relegation tournament: the four clubs faced each other in a double-robin where the bottom two were relegated.
• Octagonal: each group's top four faced each other in a double round-robin, where the best club was crowned champions.

Teams

Club	Location	Titles	Last season
Aimoré	São Leopoldo	0	11th
Brasil	Pelotas	1	6th
Cruzeiro	Porto Alegre	1	Eliminated at earlier stages (Second Division)
Farroupilha	Pelotas	1	3rd
FlamengoA	Caxias do Sul	0	Eliminated at earlier stages (Second Division)
Gaúcho	Passo Fundo	0	5th
Grêmio	Porto Alegre	18	1st
Guarany	Bagé	2	4th
Internacional	Porto Alegre	16	2nd
Juventude	Caxias do Sul	0	7th
Novo HamburgoB	Novo Hamburgo	0	12th
Pelotas	Pelotas	1	9th
Rio Grande	Rio Grande	1	10th
Riograndense	Rio Grande	0	8th
Santa Cruz	Santa Cruz do Sul	0	3rd (Second Division)
São José	Porto Alegre	0	5th (Second Division)
São Paulo	Rio Grande	0	2nd (Second Division)
Ypiranga	Erechim	0	1st (Second Division)

A.^ Caxias was known as Flamengo until 1971.

B.^ Novo Hamburgo changed back to its original name, being known as Floriano since 1942.

Preliminary stage

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Grêmio	14	9	3	2	41	12	+29	21	Qualification to octagonal
2	Brasil	14	9	2	3	28	14	+14	20
3	Santa Cruz	14	7	1	6	26	19	+7	15
4	Gaúcho	14	6	3	5	16	30	−14	15
5	Rio Grande	14	4	5	5	27	28	−1	13
6	São José	14	4	4	6	18	23	−5	12
7	Novo Hamburgo	14	3	5	6	20	32	−12	11
8	Flamengo	8	2	1	5	11	17	−6	5	Qualification to relegation tournament
9	Riograndense (RG)	8	1	0	7	6	18	−12	2

Source: [1]

Group B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Internacional	14	8	4	2	19	8	+11	20	Qualification to octagonal
2	Juventude	14	8	3	3	27	16	+11	19
3	Pelotas	14	7	3	4	16	13	+3	17
4	Cruzeiro	14	5	4	5	13	14	−1	14
5	Aimoré	14	4	5	5	12	14	−2	13
6	Ypiranga	14	5	2	7	10	14	−4	12
7	São Paulo	14	3	3	8	13	20	−7	9
8	Guarany (BA)	8	2	1	5	8	13	−5	5	Qualification to relegation tournament
9	Farroupilha	8	0	5	3	7	13	−6	5

Source: [2]

Octagonal

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Grêmio (C)	14	9	4	1	25	6	+19	22
2	Internacional	14	7	4	3	18	14	+4	18
3	Cruzeiro	14	7	1	6	19	18	+1	15
4	Santa Cruz	14	3	6	5	11	22	−11	12
5	Juventude	14	3	6	5	7	12	−5	12
6	Brasil	14	4	4	6	13	15	−2	12
7	Pelotas	14	3	5	6	19	18	+1	11
8	Gaúcho	14	2	6	6	12	19	−7	10

Source: [3]
(C) Champions

Relegation tournament

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Relegation
1	Flamengo	6	3	2	1	8	4	+4	8
2	Farroupilha	3	2	1	0	3	0	+3	5
3	Riograndense (RG)	2	0	1	1	3	4	−1	1	Relegation
4	Guarany (BA)	3	0	0	3	0	6	−6	0

Source: [4]

The results of five games are unknown.