From: wgarcia@upf.es (Walter Garcia-Fontes)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer
Subject: Re: FIFA proposed changes to (OCEANIA) Southern America
Date: 20 Aug 92 09:18:15 GMT
X-Unparsable-Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 10:37:07 WETDST

In article <16r5phINN4nd@agate.berkeley.edu> Radu Tomescu writes:
>In article <7747@public.BTR.COM> car@public.BTR.COM (Carlos Rimola-Sarti  
car@btr.com) writes:
>>The tiny nation of Uruguay has always been and still is a power in the
>>the world scene.  They have won two world cups, including the biggest
>>upset in soccer history when they defeated Brasil in the "Maracanazo"
>>final in Brasil in 1950.
>
>I'm not sure about Uruguay's current soccer prowess; at the last world cup
>they were unmercifully taken apart by a rather mundane Belgium in their
>first play-off game. To get there they had to fight South Korea, a team of
>dedicated but clumsy footballers, against whom they scored in the 90th minu-
>te...
>True, Uruguay has a rich soccer tradition, but its last meaningful showing
>in a WC final was against Brazil in 1970. By no means does this qualify them
>as a "power in the world scene"..
>>
 
Of course if you only follow World Cups, you wouldn't realize Uruguay's place 
in South American soccer, or any other South American team. I agree with
another netter that based on the same criteria you would say that only
Germany and Italy are of international caliber, ignoring the
performance in European championships of teams like France, Spain,
the Netherlands, and now Denmark. You would also ignore very good teams
like England, the late Yugoslavia, Roumania or Portugal, even the
always qualified Scotland, the late URSS and some other that I may forget.

What about Uruguay? They were South American champions in 1983 and 1987
(in this year they won in Argentina against Maradona and company the
year after Mexico '86). They made a very good championship in 1989 being
runner-ups after the host Brazil, and Ruben Sosa was declared the best
player in the tournament. In the last championship in 1991, without any
foreign based player, they placed first in their group together with
Brazil and Colombia, loosing the qualification to the final four because
of worse goal-average. Are they of world caliber now? Who knows, but I guess
that everybody respects them. Italy '90 was a big disappointment.
In the training matches, 3-3 against Germany and a win at Wembley 1-2
against England breaking a 2- year winning period, they played much
better than in  the World Cup. 

As for why South America gets 3  spots and Europe gets all the spots
that it gets, I would say that there is factor that has not been
mentioned here. In the football international governing boards there is
a lot of politics going on, and the two most powerful federations are
the Southamerican and European ones. The first continental tournaments
were played in South America, between Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina and
later Chile and the rest of Southamerican teams. I guess that the other
federations should gain more power as they are doing better and better
in the International arena, and their leagues and championships begin to
move more money (maybe this is the main factor, unfortunately), together
with wins. They turning point may be should come when an African team
(the Asian teams are still behind) wins something big. 

----     
Walter Garcia-Fontes     | Bitnet or Internet: wgarcia@upf.es         | "Tuya,
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