WCQ Follow Up

When has Uruguay ever done something easily? It is in their footballistic DNA to complicate things, to take the road not traveled, to have drama en route to the World Cup. Uruguay played a brave match against Bolivia in La Paz. They were beaten convincingly in the first half and were on the ropes early on in the second half. But a Carlos Bueno header changed the scenario for La Celeste. Sebastián Abreu equalized with another brilliant header and their fortunes seemed to change. That plus an Ecuador loss helped

Colombia stopped the bleeding somewhat in Rio, but did not score a goal in 2008. It has been 550 minutes since Dairo Moreno scored the game-winning goal against Argentina- 11 months. This is no longer a drought, this is arid terrain that we are talking about. If Colombia even dream of having a chance to make it to South Africa, they will have to start scoring. Duh!

Paraguay ran away and is now in an ideal situation. Their worst case scenario has them only two points away from reaching the magic number of 25 and they have to get it in nine matches. It gets even better for the Guaranis.

They are ten points ahead of Uruguay with nine matches to go. So if they were to completely crash, they are pretty much guaranteed a fifth place spot. If precedent follows them, they should be able to reach that in the coming matches against Uruguay and Chile.

Brazil and Argentina are struggling mightily. Ricardo Teixeira should just schedule the Canarinha´s remaining qualifiers on the road. If you look at their recent results on the road you would understand where I am coming from. At home they have teams that come in to try to get points and the Brazilian fans were piling on to the pressure. What happened to going to play in Manaus? What they need is unconditional love and when times have gotten tough, they go to Manaus.

Argentina is in shambles. They are the obviously the best team on paper. There might be no ¨I¨ in ¨team¨, but there sure as hell is an ¨m¨and an ¨e¨if you catch my drift. In their game against Chile, they were whipped like never before. Marcelo Bielsa showed up his former employer and Alfio Basile as he added on to the revival of the Menotti-Bilardo rivalry that the Argentine media has concocted.