32 For 2010: Uruguay

"Other countries have their history, it is said, while Uruguay has its football."
Tim Vickery

It is almost impossible not to become misty eyed with romanticism when it comes to Uruguay. After winning gold in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, Uruguay were rewarded by becoming hosts of the first ever World Cup in 1930. The de facto world champions claimed the official crown beneath the tower of the magnificent Estadio Centenario by beating Argentina 4-2.

Fast forward to October 2009 in the same stadium and the Uruguayans are struggling to fall over the line in a qualifying campaign that saw them finish fifth in the qualification group and have to face Costa Rica over two legs. Having won 1-0 in San Jose, the scene was set for a nervous second leg in Montevideo. And so it proved to be. Eventually, Sebastián Abreu scored for the home side causing pandemonium in the crowd. Minutes later however, Costa Rica equalised and the tension was restored to the Centenario.

But an upset was never really likely thanks to Uruguay's away goal and the first team to win the World Cup became the last team to qualify for the 2010 tournament in South Africa. That they took such a convoluted path is a reflection of the relative decline of Uruguayan football since those heady days before and after the war where they set the standard for the game and in shattering Brazilian hopes in 1950 (where they caused one of the great upsets in world football by beating the host to the Cup in the final match) they helped redefine the Brazilian game.

Uruguay failed to qualify for the World Cup in Germany 2006. They didn't make it past Round 1 in 2002 and were absent in France '98 and USA '94. As the continent's traditional lesser lights such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile improve, the Uruguayans will only find the road to future World Cups an even harder one to travel, particularly when you take into account the country's modest population.

Nevertheless, Uruguay are travelling to South Africa and were drawn in Group A with hosts South Africa, plus Mexico and France. The presence of the hosts as seeds hands a significant advantage to the rest of the group. Mexico will be familiar opponents as they regularly participate in the Copa America with Mexican clubs playing in the Copa Libatadores. France will almost certainly be favorites but remain something of an enigma under their eccentric coach Raymond Domenech.

The head coach of the Uruguayan national team is Oscar Tabarez (or El Maestro, as he is known). He previously coached the team in Italia '90. As for the players, Diego Forlan requires little introduction. The Atletico Madrid player won the Pichichi Trophy at his former club Villareal and is one of the hottest talents in La Liga. He is also Uruguay's 8th most capped player and the joint sixth all-time top scorer with twenty three goals, eight less that the great Hector Scarone.

However, this does not make Forlan the top scorer in the current squad. That honour goes to the aforementioned Sebastián Abreu of Botafogo in Brazil. He is only three goals behind Scarone's record and may conceivably break that record by the end of Uruguay's involvement in South Africa 2010. Having said that, Tobarez has preferred Ajax forward Luis Suarez in recent games. The 23 year old has scored 27 goals this season and will form a potent threat alongside Forlan this summer.

That, coupled with a favourable draw makes Uruguay a genuine barrier to Mexico and France in Group A and could themselves slip into the Second Round. For the future there are potentially exciting times. The proposal that Uruguay bid to co-host the 2030 Centenary World Cup with Argentina is already gathering momentum. The prospect of the World Cup Final taking place once again at the Estadio Centenario is too exciting for a world football fan. The prospect would re-energise the nation and hopefully provide much needed focus and vigour for one of the greatest, yet smallest footballing nations.

League Spotlight: Uruguay / Primera Division

Those of you who that have been following our regular feature 'League of the Week' will have by now spotted two things: (1) editions of 'League of the Week' have been anything but regular of late, and (2) this feature you're reading now seems to be more or less the same thing but with a different name.

There's a reason for that. We've decided to rename 'League of the Week' to 'League Spotlight' as, frankly, we couldn't keep up with the pace of researching and writing a sizeable feature like this along with all our other stuff on a weekly basis. We therefore thought we'd take a more flexible approach by bringing you the same feature whenever we could, but without any specific guarantees as to its regularity.

And with that weak excuse out of the way, let's crack on with today's League Spotlight and further to a request some time ago from Chris C Paul at Football Overdose we're on the road to Uruguay and their Primera Division...

Yes, Uruguay - twice world champions but these days an also-ran in the global game. While the national team labours on in the vague hope of capturing a qualifying berth for the 2010 World Cup, its top domestic league remains a melting pot for some of the most well-known clubs on the planet.

Back in days of yore when the champion clubs from Europe and South America played for the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, it wasn't unusual to find a Uruguayan club in the Final. Penarol appeared in three of the first seven from 1960 onwards, and two of those they won against Real Madrid and Benfica.

Nacional were the next to take part, beating Panathinaikos in 1971 and Nottingham Forest in 1980 before Penarol returned to see off Aston Villa in 1982. Both teams would enjoy one more appearance in the Final - Penarol losing 2-1 after extra time to Porto in 1987 and Nacional beating PSV Eindhoven on penalties the year after, but since then there's been nothing. Uruguayan club football, it seems, has been left behind by the rising fortunes of other countries in South America.

But is the Uruguayan First Division just a perennial two-horse race and do Penarol and Nacional still have the game by the throat these days? Not any more, so it seems, but change has only recently started to happen.

Despite Nacional or Penarol winning all but one of the league titles between 1992 and 2005, some new names are now starting to emerge. The current champions are Defensor Sporting, renowned for their ultra-defensive approach and a hot bed for talent that often finds greater exposure abroad.

Last season, they won the Torneo Apertura and went onto beat the Penarol 2-1 on aggregate in the two-legged Final.

Now at this point we should explain that the Uruguayan First Division is played out in two halves (as in many other Latin American countries). The first half of the season is called the 'Opening Tournament' (Torneo Apertura) while the teams play each other again in the second half, known as the 'Closing Tournament' (Torneo Clausura). The winners of each tournament play each other in a Final at the end of the season to decide the overall champions.

All of which is frightfully messy and not a little unnecessary, but never mind. Defensor are currently in sixth place in the Apertura, three points behind second-placed Danubio who are the only other team to break the Nacional/Penarol cycle by winning the championship in 2006/07.

Danubio can claim to have had many well known players pass through its doors over the years. One-time Middlesbrough curio Hamilton Ricard played there in their championship-winning season while the likes of Alvaro Recoba and Ruben Sosa - both legends of the national team - also donned the diagonal sash of La Franja.

They also have the current leading scorer in the Primera Division, Sergio Leal, who recently arrived from Gimnasia in Argentina and has so far scored six goals in this season's Apertura. But what of the two giants and biggest rivals in the Uruguayan top flight, Penarol and Nacional? What's to know about them?

Well Penarol, famous for their yellow and black striped shirts, are one of the oldest clubs in the world created around the workforce of the local British-owned railway company back in the late-1900's. They've been Uruguayan champions more times than any other club (36) and have been runners-up for the last two seasons.

They're obviously still a team to be reckoned with and having such strong support means they're justified in making regular use of the nearby Estadio Centenario - the monolithic stadium that staged the first World Cup Final in 1930. Not that they can call the Centenario their own, mind you - they have to share it with their fiercest rivals, Nacional.

Winners of five out of the last ten championships, Nacional are based in Montevideo... but then again so are 13 of the other 15 teams in the Primera Division. Historically speaking, it's played a big part in Uruguayan football and provided most of the players for the national teams that won the 1928 Olympic soccer tournament and the World Cup of 1930 (above left). Also, as eluded to earlier, they're the only team to win the Intercontinental Cup (World Club Cup) three times.

And to leave you in no doubt as to their credentials, Nacional are also currently top of the league, one point ahead of Danubio. So who else do we need to know about before we draw a line under this little old summary?

Well there's Liverpool... no, not that Liverpool - Liverpool FC Montevideo, so named (supposedly) because some of the club's founder members had heard of the English port and like the sound of it. They've never won the league but are currently fourth in the Apertura and managed a third place finish back in 1995. Further success is long overdue, one feels...

Then there's River Plate, third place last season and eighth at the moment, Cerro, a relatively unknown quantity but currently third in the table, and Bella Vista who won the league title once in 1990 and were third in 1998.

To be honest, there are many other teams that make up the top division in Uruguayan football, but the important ones are those listed above. Some might say even they are doomed to achieve only limited success for the simple reason that any player showing a feint glimmer of quality tends to get snapped pretty quickly by another club in another country.

A case in point can be gleaned from the team that started in Uruguay's last World Cup qualifier against Bolivia a month ago. Of the eleven players that kicked off, only two - Carlos Bueno of Penarol and Hugo Arismendi of Nacional - play their club football in the Primera Division.

And that's why there's a kind of forlorn air about Uruguayan league football. As much as the fans get behind their teams and cheer them on to their next victory or their next trophy, they must surely be aware that in the overall scheme of things, the Primera Division barely shows up on the world football radar.

Whether their star will rise again, though, one can't be sure, but at least Uruguayan club football has a proud history that many countries would yearn for. That alone is something to be rather proud of.

Copa America 2007: Semi Final Review

Written by Chris (B Squad)

As a prelude to the upcoming Copa America final, I thought I would recap the semi finals. Both matches were incredibly entertaining and well worth the price of admission. It is a bit disappointing to have a Brazil/Argentina final, only in the sense that it seemed predestined. The final is sure to be class in every way. It is just unfortunate that industry has lost out to imagination.

Brazil 2-2 Uruguay (Brazil win 5-4 on penalties)
This match was fabulous. Uruguay worked so hard, but you got the feeling it would never be enough to get over the hump. Brazil, in this game as in all the others of this competition, played lackadaisical with the occasional sprinkle of magic. Each time Brazil scored it seemed to be the end for Uruguay, but to their credit they never gave in.

Forlan was at the top of his game. The first goal was very well taken and the flick on to Abreu for the second was genius. I've never particularly liked Uruguay, but when the ball tumbled over the keeper, I jumped from my couch. It may have been a little schadenfreude, but it was mostly just the culmination of a truly exciting match. And I know Brazil should have had a few penalties calls and should never have been in the position to go to penalties. They may have had some good karma on their side because of it.

As for the shootout, Uruguay had every chance to send Brazil home and failed. Forlan delivered what could be one the worst spot kicks I have ever seen. From hero to goat seems to be his lot in life. And after so many shots off the post, Uruguay stood with one kick for victory, and it hit the post.

Now I don't agree with the way Brazil won, and I wish FIFA would address this (and I'm a Liverpool fan), but as I said, Brazil had some karma in the bank. Maybe the blackout in the middle of the match was foreshadowing for Uruguay. I do have to say that Uruguay have been incredibly poor sports about losing. Both in this competition and in the U-20 World Cup, Uruguay start fights after the final whistle. Overall, though, a very respectable tournament for them. And there is yet another final for the Brazilians.

Argentina 3-0 Mexico
This scoreline is deceiving. The match was much closer than 3-0 and Mexico was unlucky to fall in the way that they did. But football is all about finishing, and that's what separated these two sides. Mexico would have been up 2-0 in the first half but for a few inches and some white posts.

Riquelme was transcendent, despite being hacked down constantly. The free kick that resulted in the opening goal was nothing short of incredible, good finish from Heinze as well. Again in the second half, Mexico had opportunities and went begging.

Then their was the Messi wondergoal, which, for me, was the goal of the cup. He will soon be pressing to be the best player on the planet, if he isn't already. Riquelme put the icing on the cake with a very Zidanesque penalty on a soft foul call at the edge of the box. Nonetheless, considering how he has played, you'd have to say he deserved it.



(Side note: While writing this, I'm watching the '93 Copa Final, which Argentina won over Mexico thanks to a Batistuta brace. It's funny how you remember these players as great, but it's not until you see the replays years later that you appreciate how truly skilled they were.)

So on to the Final, which is destined to be filled with skill, trickery, and bit of histrionics. Brazil has the class to win, but you would have to favor Argentina. Riquelme, Tevez, Messi, and the high-scoring Mascherano (who knew), will just be too much for the Brazilians to contain.