Unable to pay competitive salaries or acquire the top talent that they had acquired during the 1980s and 1990s, América was forced to sell off many of its stars and began fading as a force in Colombian football. By 2002, the players acquired back in the club's glory days were mostly gone, and the caliber of their replacements was nowhere near the same. Although the club managed to reach the semifinals of the Copa Libertadores in 2003, losing to Boca Juniors, reach the finals of the 2008 Apertura tournament, and win a championship in the 2008 Finalización tournament, these were merely a blip in a long, painful decline. The situation finally bottomed out in the 2011 season, when América lost the relegation playoff to Patriotas on penalties and was relegated for the first time. That defeat ended a string of 64 seasons in the top flight.