An homage to Uruguay

July 17th, 2011 | by: Marty | Comments Off

God knows I hated them for years. I considered them the Italy of South America, the team for which no trick was too underhanded for them to use to succeed. Diving to earn penalties were my main issue, but their substandard play never matched the results that crappy play seemed to deserve. They also had the knack of eliminating my favourite teams from various competitions.

First there was 1999, when they reached the Copa America final by winning two penalty shootouts and knocking out the hosts, Paraguay, in one of them. Then there was the 2002 World Cup qualifiers, in which they played terribly but were able to consistently scrape out results that didn’t match the quality of their play, and always seemed to be the recipients of some rubbish penalty (in three key games!) that allowed them to hustle 1-1 and 1-0 results against direct rivals.

Then they played my country, Australia, twice in the key battles to reach World Cups 2002 and 2006. When they beat us in 2001 I thought we would never make the World Cup again; beating them on penalties in 2005 to qualify for WC 2006 (after 30 years of fuckups for Australia) was one of the greatest highlights in the sporting life of my country.

They proved their abilities in the unforgettable match against Senegal at WC 2002, in which they erased a 0-3 halftime deficit with an incredible attacking display to draw 3-3. I was really into the Senegal story at the time, so if Richard Morales had put in his free header to win 4-3 I would have been devastated. I hated them.

Uruguay then qualified for their highly successful 2010 World Cup because Luis Suarez took a dive in their penultimate key game in Ecuador, allowing Uruguay to win 2-1 on a last-kick penalty. They would not have qualified for their fantastic World Cup without this dive.

Don’t even get me started on Ghana-Uruguay 2010 and the Suarez handball. At the time I was livid, and still feel sad about it. Suarez did what he had to do and now I feel less rancour, but the fact remained that young Domenic Adiyiah, whose career is only beginning, should have scored the most important goal in African soccer history (and therefore one of the most important goals in soccer history) but instead ten minutes later merely became the bum who missed the key penalty and allowed Uruguay to win. Uruguay progressed to the semi-finals, in the end, because they cheated.

But, but…. Goddamn I admire their moxie, their balls. Their population is only, what, four million? Yet they produce terrific players. Their World Cup last year was a triumph of a balanced team, who could defend, create and had a terrific attacking point of Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez. Forlan was deservedly named player of the tournament.

That they beat Argentina on their own turf, the key rivals who usually lose to Argentina but who this time eliminated Argentina from their own tournament, defies description. There are maybe better end-to-end matches, but as a historic event, Uruguay defeating Argentina in Argentina yesterday despite playing much of the match a man down really is as good as it gets. The drama of the shootout! The efficiency of their five kicks! The amazing penalty by Higuaín who, facing elimination, hit the crossbar, saw the ball bounce out, but whose momentum carried it onto the crossbar again, bouncing down behind the line and maintaining Argentina’s participation in their tournament by centimetres, before Caceres scored a wonderful penalty into the top corner that defeated an entire stadium and an entire nation. Shit, I need a cigarette after that one!