Brazil finishes first in the South America qualifying
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October 16th, 2009
The South America Qualifyings for the World Cup 2010 finished this past weekend.
Brazil finished the Qualifying in first place (with 34 points), followed by Chile, Paraguay and Argentina (see full table here); these four countries are qualified for the 2010 World Cup. Uruguay, who finished fifth, will face a play-off against Costa Rica, the winner also being qualified to the Cup.
Brazil played the last match against Venezuela, in Campo Grande, in a 0 x 0 draw. Brazil had already secured presence in the Cup by beating Argentina a few weeks ago. Coach Dunga used the two last matches to experiment with new players.
The most dramatic situation was Argentina’s. Los hermanos had to win two tough matches to go to the Cup. First, they faced Peru; at 85 minutes, Peru scored a goal to equalize the score; only with a goal at 92 minutes, with Palermo in off-side position (that the referee overlooked), could Argentina add two extremely valuable points to their tab.
The video below shows Palermo’s goal. Notice that there is a Peruvian player between Palermo and the goal line, but the goal keeper is not there; so, as there is not at least two adversaries between him and the goal, Palermo was off-side.
Thanks to those two extra points, Argentina had one leading point when playing the final match, against Uruguay; Uruguay had to win to qualify. Instead, Argentina won by 1 x 0, much to the relief of coach Maradona.
Does that mean that Brazil is a favorite and Argentina an underdog for the 2010 Cup? Probably not.
Both in1994 and 2002, the Brazilian team left for the Cup without much hope of winning, and ended up being the Champion; on the other hand, Brazil was THE team to beat in 2006, and the campaign was one of the biggest fiascos in Brazilian history.
That’s what the Argentinians are hoping for. In 2002, much like Brazil in 2006, Argentina had a constelation of stellar players, including Verón, Riquelme, Batistuta, Sorin, Ortega, which some (including Time) considered favorite to win the Cup, but didn’t get past the first stage. Argentinians and Brazilians know that, leaving to the Cup with a low profile (and less pressure), there are good chances that the team performs well.