Vamos Uruguay

Welcome to Uruguay

On May 26, 1928, at a meeting in Amsterdam, the FIFA congress decided that a new tournament would open to all its members. FIFA wanted to stage a tournament of its own and get out of the shadow of the Olympics. Jules Rimet believed, FIFA was capable of staging its own global event. Jules Rimet had his opponents to oppose his idea, but they failed to fight against the acceptance of the majority.

A year later in Barcelona, it was agreed that Uruguay, the Olympic Champions and the era's footballing superpower, should celebrate 100 years of independence by hosting the first-ever FIFA World Cup.

This did little to appease the European nations, though, as many opted out of the inaugural tournament. With air travel still in its infancy, it would be necessary to travel by boat, a process that would take several days.

 Only 13 nations took part in the inaugural tournament, with a majority of nine coming from South America.

England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were all ineligible, having withdrawn from FIFA because of a dispute over payments to amateur players. However, a number of British players did find their way into the team representing the United States, where professional football was being played.

Europe's only representatives were Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, and Romania.

The rest turned down invitations either in a fit of pique because the competition was not being staged in Europe or cited the three-week voyage to South America as prohibitive.

Romania entered on the personal instructions of King Carol, who also selected the squad.

He gave the players three months off from their jobs with guarantees that they would be re-employed.

Majority of the South American countries featured in Uruguay to be part of a historic event, which the rest failed to realize.

One stadium is what Uruguay played in during the tournament – a joint-record low for a World Cup-winning team (matched by England in 1966).

Initially, all the tournament’s 18 matches were to be played in the Centenario, but torrential rain delayed its construction and it wasn’t ready until the sixth day, forcing La Celeste’s debut to be delayed and another two Montevideo venues to host other teams’ games.

At the 2002 tournament, 20 different stadiums, each in a different city, were used, with Brazil lifting the Trophy having played in an unprecedented seven.

History Football in Uruguay

With over 3.5-million people living in the country, Uruguay is buffered between Brazil and Argentina. Uruguay has spent most of her time as an independent nation in the shadow of her larger bordering nations. Yet, in one very important part of South American life, Uruguay has excelled from the very beginning: football.

With a record 15 Copa America title to add to their two World Cup triumphs, Uruguay has enjoyed far more success than any other nation of comparable size.

Like Argentina and Brazil, football was introduced in Uruguay by British immigrants and expatriates in the 19th century. Some references say that the game had been introduced in 1880, at the English High School by Henry Castle Ayre, born in Bedminster in March 1852.

The first recorded football match in Uruguay was played in 1881 between Montevideo Rowing Club (established in 1874) and Montevideo Cricket Club (1861), while Albion F.C. –established in Montevideo in 1891– was the first football club in the country.

British football clubs tours over South America contributed to the spread and development of football in Uruguay during the first years of the 20th century. The first club to tour was Southampton in 1904, followed by several teams (mainly from England although some Scotland clubs also visited South America) until 1929 with Chelsea being the last team to tour.

British football clubs tours over South America contributed to the spread and development of football in Uruguay during the first years of the 20th century. The first club to tour was Southampton in 1904, followed by several teams (mainly from England although some Scotland clubs also visited South America) until 1929 with Chelsea being the last team to tour.

British teams were considered the best in the world by then, and some of them served as an inspiration to establish football clubs in Uruguay and Argentina, helped by the immigration of British citizens that had arrived to work for British companies (mostly in railway construction). CURCC and Albion are some examples of clubs established by British immigrants to South America.

Uruguay is a country with a population that does not exceed more than three and a half million and features a large concentration of professional football teams in the city of Montevideo. The two biggest club teams in the country's Primera Division are Penarol, which was established in 1891, and Nacional, founded in 1899.

Football in Uruguay excelled and Nacional and Penarol played a major role in doing such. Their structure produced skillful and professional players, who not only outweighed their neighbours, but the other powerhouses of world football.

A dull start for the hot favorites

At the start of the twentieth century, Uruguay Football only flourished and flourished and after the First World War, Uruguay were the best in the world.

Obviously, they were the ultimate favourites in the inaugural FIFA World Cup 1930.

Coming out to the deafening roars of the crowd in the impressive 90,000-capacity Estadio Centenario, in the first match of the tournament to be held there, Uruguay looked a bit down in the first half. Although football fever had long since swept the nation and the team contained several players who had experienced incredible atmospheres before, they knew they had the weight of the nation on their shoulders.

To add to this, the underdogs Peru had set up to frustrate, playing an intelligent yet negative brand of football.

When Uruguay eventually made the breakthrough, it was evident that one goal would be enough for them to win the game.

The journey started without any hiccups, but it was not satisfactory.  

The Uruguayan press, who blasted the team and demanded of a more free-flowing and attacking brand of football.

Alberto Suppici rechecks his plans

In those days, 2-3-5or 2-3-2-3 was in practice in world football and teams like Uruguay and Argentina exploited the attacking intent of this format fully.

The Uruguayan manager back in 1930, Alberto Suppici, did not utter a word to the dull display in the opening match but proved his point through deeds in the upcoming matches.

Suppici stuck to the 2-3-5 formation which changed shape accordingly to 2-3-2-3 and even 2-5-3, when compactness was required.

4 days before Uruguay kicked off their campaign, Andres Mazali, who had played a fundamental role in their Men’s Olympic Football Tournament triumphs of 1924 and ’28 and was their first-choice goalkeeper, was sent home for breaking Suppici’s curfew. Mazali had snuck out of the team hotel to reportedly meet a female.

Enrique Ballestrero, the new goalkeeper would be given assistance by two half-backs: Ernesto Mascheroni and skipper Jose Nasazzi. In those days Nasazzi was the best defender in the world, who could play as a winger and orchestrate attacks from deep as well. Meanwhile, Nasazzi built a strong partnership with Mascheroni in neutralizing attacking and marking the opponent strikers.

In front of these two, there were two center-halves: Alvaro Gestido on the left and Jose Andrade on the right with Lorenzo Fernadez playing the role of a center-half.

Fernadez was one of the 21 foreign players to have won the World Cup. He was a Spanish-Uruguayan and in 1930, his main role was to maintain the balance between the backline and up-front.

Pedro Cea and Hector Scarone played as an inside forward.

This role has evolved over the last few decades to sit deeper and link-up play between the midfield and forward lines and in the case of the two finalists, get the bell to the two wingers.

Hector Castro was the center-forward, who was aided by two wingers up-front: Santos Iriarte on the left and Pablo Dorado on the right.  

One arm was all Hector Castro had, leading to him being nicknamed El Manco - The One-Armed One. The Nacional icon accidentally cut off his own limb while using an electric saw as a 13-year-old.

The crossing was becoming more and more in fashion into the 20th century so it was their job to receive the ball and provide crosses for the center-forward but they could also cut inside to create chances or to get on the end of crosses from the opposite winger.

Suppici rechecked his options and demanded more from the inside forward to push up and add a bit more fuel for the players up-front with the center-half and half-backs advised to maintain compactness when Nasazzi would free his wings.

The results were showing.

Uruguay attack, counter-attack, and attack

Uruguay’s next match was against Romania, who beat Peru convincingly in their opening encounter. After Uruguay’s dull affair against Peru, the match turned out to be very important for Uruguay.

The winner would qualify for the semifinals and a win was must as only the group winners would advance to the next round.

The raucous crowd appeared to influence the team positively, and they raced into a four-goal lead in the first half, with four different goalscorers.

Goals from Dorado, Juan Anselmo, and Cea came to either side of a brilliant 24th-minute effort from the legendary Scarone.

Born in 1898, Scarone had three spells with one of Uruguay’s big two, Nacional.

Despite representing three other clubs during his illustrious career, Scarone won eight championships with Nacional, scoring an incredible 301 goals. He is, however, equally notable for his time abroad. In 1926, Scarone became one of the first South American players to sign for Barcelona, a club now represented by the man who eventually broke his longstanding national team goals record, Luis Suarez.

Scarone had not been available to play in the group’s opening game against Peru and his attacking potency had been sorely missed. Having vastly improved with the Nacional man back in the side against Romania, Uruguay were ready for the knockout rounds.

Uruguay’s opponents were to be Yugoslavia – one of the European powerhouses in those days.

Uruguay were not going to allow themselves to make the same mistakes they had made against Peru in their opening game, so they took Yugoslavia seriously.

Between their second group game against Romania on 21 of July and their semi-final six days later, the Uruguay players were put through their paces in a strict training regime with little contact with the outside world.

Yugoslavia had far fewer combined caps and played for a variety of different clubs – they had been seriously impressive in winning their group and had lethal Serbian striker Blagoje Marjanović in their ranks. Marjanović scored an incredible 575 goals for his club BSK Beograd, also representing five other Yugoslav clubs in an extraordinary career.

Not content with merely an illustrious playing career, he went on to enjoy a successful managerial career in Italy with Torino and Catania.

On July 27, 1930, those who were present at the stadium witnessed an Uruguayan massacre.

La Celeste tore the Eastern Europeans into shreds.

With the superior movement to their Eastern European counterparts, Uruguay took the lead in the 18th minute.

Cea, who would go on to manage the national team, scored a hat-trick, Peñarol legend Juan Anselmo added two more and Santos Iriarte completed the rout. Yugoslavia were to make the long journey home having been well and truly taken apart.

goals in a World Cup semi-final is what Pedro Cea is one of only three men to score. Oldrich Nejedly got all of Czechoslovakia’s goals in a 3-1 reverse of Germany in 1934, while Pele posted a hat-trick as Brazil beat France 5-2 in 1958. Cea’s treble propelled Uruguay to a 6-1 win over Yugoslavia, which remained the joint-biggest victory in a World Cup semi – Argentina thrashed the USA by the same score in 1930 – until Germany thumped Brazil 7-1 84 years later.

Uruguay were lauded by the press after such an impressive semifinal victory, but they had not finished the job yet.

On July 26, Argentina thrashed the United States of America by 6-1 and surely would not allow Uruguay to rest in the finals!

The first-ever World Cup Final – Vamos Uruguay

Football euphoria engulfed Latin America – Argentina and Uruguay were suffering from football hysteria and each day the tension grew regarding the final. The tickets were sold out and still, the demand remained high and a huge gather was expected on an eventful day – extra police was deployed.  

While the press in Argentina were over-confident of a victory from their side, Uruguay saw this as an opportunity to get one over on their larger neighbour and move out its shadow.

With tensions building on the day of the final, extra police had to be deployed outside the Centenario.

The final was played at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, Uruguay, on 30 July, a Wednesday.

Up to date, it is, along with the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, the only World Cup Final not to be played on a Sunday (the latter being played on a Saturday).

This World Cup Final is also the only one not to be played on a weekend. The stadium gates were opened at eight o'clock, six hours before kick-off, and at noon the ground was full, officially holding 93,000 people!

As the fans packed into the national stadium once more for football’s biggest match, Uruguay’s Alberto Suppici decided to deploy a more defensive formation in the hope of being able to soak up some of Argentina’s undoubted attacking threat.

Suppici, who was just 31 at the time and remains the youngest manager to win the World Cup, told his players before going out that he was confident they would win the trophy “for Uruguay”.

With this message ringing in their ears, Uruguay’s players ran out to the deafening roars of the Centenario crowd.

A disagreement overshadowed the build-up to the match as the teams disagreed on who should provide the match ball, forcing FIFA to intervene and decree that the Argentine team would provide the ball for the first half and the Uruguayans would provide one for the second.

The Belgian referee John Langenus blew his whistle and, 12 minutes later, Uruguay were ahead through Dorado.

The crowd went wild, but it wasn’t long until they were silenced as Argentina hit back with two goals to go into half-time with the lead.

Now it was time for Suppici to inspire his players again!

Uruguay came roaring back in the second half.

Their attack, counter-attack, and attack again tactics pushed Argentina on the back foot.

 Goals came from Cea, Iriarte, and Castro to secure the first-ever World Cup for Uruguay.

It was a memorable final and quite a tensed and exciting one and set the tone for the rest of the events to follow in the coming days.

Jules Rimet and FIFA declared their tournament a resounding success and promised that more World Cups were to follow.

The whole of Uruguay was ecstatic with their victory and a national holiday was declared.

The players were heroes and were treated as such.

Uruguay became the first team to win each and every match of a World Cup Tournament. Brazil surpassed that twice: One in 1970 and the other in 2002. 

Note: This article has been posted at Cricketsoccer on 30/07/2020 Vamos Uruguay

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Faisal Caesar

England on top of the world

A shocking start

In 1930, FIFA made the decision to stage its own international tournament. With Uruguay now two-time official world champions and due to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country.

The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. No European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition   America, but in the end, the influence of Jules Rimet let France, Belgium, Romania, and Yugoslavia take part in the historic event, which ultimately a success.

Before the Second World War broke out, FIFA staged three World Cups successfully with Uruguay winning one and Italy the rest.

Surprisingly, England, who are dubbed by many as the inventor of the game did not take part in any of the FIFA World Cups until 1950.

In Europe, England were one of the top sides boasting with brilliant players and a well-established football league. There was a great opportunity for them to be a part of the history, but when they ultimately took part in 1950, their campaign was shattered by the United States of America.

Their start was brilliant with a 2-0 win over Chile but in the next encounter at Belo Horizonte, Joe Gaetjens scored the only goal of the match, which gave the USA the unlikely victory and stunned England.

Still today, that victory is regarded as the greatest upset in the history of World Cup Football.

 A myth arose that the English newspapers were so confident of an English victory that when the result was telegrammed back, they assumed a misprint and printed the score as 10–1 in England's favour. However, this has proven to be untrue.

This left England in a sticky situation prior to their final match, against Spain in Rio. They needed to win, and for Chile to beat the United States to stand any chance of going through, and even then they would need the goal averages to fall in their favour. As it turned out, no such calculations were necessary, despite Chile's victory, as Spain's Zarra scored the only goal of the game, eliminating England from the competition.

Since then England have been a regular feature in the tournament, but they had to wait 16 years to reach the top!

World Cup 1966

England was chosen as host of the 1966 World Cup in Rome, Italy on 22 August 1960, over rival bids from West Germany and Spain. This is the first tournament to be held in a country that was affected directly by World War II, as the four previous tournaments were either held in countries out of war theatres or in neutral countries.

The Africans boycotted the event in protest of a new FIFA rule that required the three second-round winners from the African zone to enter a play-off round against the winners of the Asian zone in order to qualify for the World Cup, as they felt winning their zone was enough in itself to merit qualification. They also protested against the readmission of South Africa to FIFA in 1963, despite its expulsion from CAF due to the apartheid regime in 1958.

Despite the boycott of the Africans, there was another new record number of entries for the qualifying tournament, with 70 nations taking part. After all the arguments, FIFA finally ruled that ten teams from Europe would qualify, along with four from South America, one from Asia and one from North and Central America.

It was a World Cup, which was marred by controversies, shocks, ultra-defensive displays, l of intent to score gaols in the group stages, rough tackles, and a memorable final Wembley.

In Group 1, England opened the event with a dull display against Uruguay and were crucified by the press. They responded well against Mexico and France in the following matches, thus, topped the group.

In Group 2, West Germany and Argentina qualified with ease as they both finished the group with 5 points, Spain managed 2, while Switzerland left the competition after losing all three group matches. FIFA cautioned Argentina for its violent style in the group games, particularly in the scoreless draw with West Germany, which saw Argentinean Rafael Albrecht get sent off and suspended for the next.

In the northwest of England, Old Trafford and Goodison Park played host to Group 3 which saw the two-time defending champions Brazil finish in third place behind Portugal and Hungary, and be eliminated along with Bulgaria. Brazil were defeated 3–1 by Hungary in a classic encounter before falling by the same scoreline to Portugal in a controversial game, where the Portuguese relied on rough tackles to kick Pele ou of the game.

No sooner had the exit of Brazil triggered a shockwave around the globe, in Group 4, North Korea knocked Italy out of the tournament and advanced to the quarterfinals along with USSR.

The knockout stages would not witness Brazil since 1938, but Argentina and Uruguay represented the Latin Americans.

The Germans thrashed Uruguay in a controversial game, where La Celeste complained against the English referee Jim Finney,  ad not recognized a handball by Schnellinger on the goal line, and then had sent off two players from Uruguay: Horacio Troche and Héctor Silva.

It appeared as though the surprise package North Korea would claim another major upset in their match against Portugal at Goodison Park when after 22 minutes they led 3–0. It fell to one of the greatest stars of the tournament, Eusebio, to change that. He scored four goals in the game and Jose Augusto added a fifth in the 78th minute to earn Portugal a 5–3 win.

Meanwhile, in the other two games, Ferenc Bene's late goal for Hungary against the Soviet Union, who were led by Lev Yashin's stellar goalkeeping, proved little more than a consolation as they crashed out 2–1, and the only goal between Argentina and England came courtesy of England's Geoff Hurst.

During that controversial game, Argentina's Antonio Rattin became the first player to be sent off in a senior international football match at Wembley. Rattin at first refused to leave the field and eventually had to be escorted by several policemen.

After 30 minutes England scored the only goal of the match. This game is called el Robo del Siglo (the robbery of the century) in Argentina.

The semifinal was an all-European affair where England and Germany advanced to the finals.

Road to Wembley

July 30, 1966. All the roads led to the famous Wembley Stadium where the Three Lions would meet one of their bitter rivals, Germany in the final. Both the nations were enemies of each other during World War II and even after the end of the war, the bitterness is still evident in every aspect of life. In football, that rivalry always reaches a different level – apart from footballing displays, temper flows and controversies crop up from nowhere.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth was present at Wembley to witness the final and watch her Boys fight it out against the Germans. The noise at Wembley was so much that it created a festive atmosphere in the stadium and also, it pressurized the English Boys, who came out from the dugout with the determination to lift the trophy.

The referee blew the whistle and the game commenced.

After 12 minutes, Sigfried Held sent a cross into the English penalty area which Ray Wilson misheaded to Helmut Haller, who got his shot on target. Jack Charlton and goalkeeper Gordon Banks failed to deal with the shot which went in, making it 1–0 to West Germany.

In the 18th minute, Wolfgang Overath conceded a free-kick, which Moore took immediately, floating a cross into the West German area, where Geoff Hurst rose unchallenged and leveled the scores with a downward glancing header. The teams were level at half-time, and after 77 minutes England won a corner. Alan Ball delivered the ball to Geoff Hurst whose deflected shot from the edge of the area found Martin Peters. He produced the final shot, beating the West German keeper from eight yards to make the score 2–1 to England.

Germany pressed for an equalizer in the closing moments, and in the 89th minute Jack Charlton conceded a free kick for climbing on Uwe Seeler as they both went up for a header.

The kick was taken by Lothar Emmerich, who struck it into George Cohen in the wall; the rebound fell to Held, who shot across the face of goal and into the body of Karl-Heinz Schnellinger.

The ball deflected across the England six-yard box, wrong-footing the England defence and allowing Wolfgang Weber to level the score at 2–2 and force the match into extra time.

Banks protested that the ball had struck Schnellinger on the arm, and reiterated the claim in his 2002 autobiography,but replays showed that it actually struck Schnellinger on the back.

 The controversial third goal

The English manager Alf Ramsey rallied his team and advised to press forward.

England did the same and created several chances.

With 11 minutes of an extra-time gone, Alan Ball put in a cross and Geoff Hurst swiveled and shot from close range. The ball hit the underside of the crossbar, bounced down and was cleared.

The referee Gottfried Dienst was uncertain if it had been a goal and consulted his linesman, Tofiq Bahramov from Azerbaijan in the USSR, who indicated that it was, and the Swiss referee awarded the goal to the home team.

The crowd and the audience of 400-million television viewers were left arguing whether the goal should have been given or not. The crossbar is now on display in the Wembley Stadium.

England's third goal has remained controversial ever since the match. According to the Laws of the Game, the definition of a goal is when “the whole of the ball passes over the goal line”.

 English supporters cited the good position of the linesman and the statement of Roger Hunt, the nearest England player to the ball, who claimed it was a goal and that was why he wheeled away in celebration rather than attempting to tap the rebounding ball in. Modern studies using film analysis and computer simulation have shown that the whole ball never crossed the line – only 97% did.

Both Duncan Gillies of the Visual Information Processing Group at Imperial College London and Ian Reid and Andrew Zisserman of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford has stated that the ball would have needed to travel a further 2.5–6.0 cm to fully cross the line.

Some Germans cited possible bias of the Soviet linesman, especially as the USSR had just been defeated in the semi-finals by West Germany.

Bahramov later stated in his memoirs that he believed the ball had bounced back not from the crossbar but from the net and that he was not able to observe the rest of the scene, so it did not matter where the ball hit the ground anyway.

50 years later, Geoff Hurst told FIFA.com, “I will tell anyone connected with world football: that ball was at least one meter over the line – full stop!” 

“I hit the ball on the half-turn. I fell over, so I had a very poor view and the ball actually bounced behind Tilkowski, so I didn’t see it. But you want to believe more than your life’s worth that the ball crossed the line. And so that belief has remained strongly within me”.

“And I’ve always gone on my team-mate Roger Hunt’s celebration. He wheeled away in celebration when he could have put the ball in the net himself. He shouted ‘It’s a goal’, and I’ve always gone on that.”

However, after he hit the ball, he did not have the greatest view of what transpired in that 101st minute of play.

England led by 3-2.

Hurst completes his hat-trick, England triumph

Germany had equalized with the last kick in the regular 90 minutes, and they had gone within inches of repeating the blow in extra time when Seeler lunged in on a headed pass by Held.

But Bobby Moore took the ball coolly out of defence and lifted it upfield to Hurst 10 yards inside the German half. The referee was already looking at his watch and three England supporters had prematurely invaded the pitch as Hurst took the ball on his chest.

At first, he seemed inclined to dawdle out time. Then abruptly he sprinted through on the inside-left position with a German defender pressing him. As Tilkowski prepared to move out, Hurst swung his left foot and drove the ball breathtakingly into the top of the net.

England’s supremacy was confirmed.

Hurst became the only person on the planet to script a hat-trick in the World Cup Final.

The final goal gave rise to one of the most famous calls in English football history when BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme described the situation as follows:

“And here comes Hurst. He's got... some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over. It is now! It's four!”

One of the balls from the final is on display in the National Football Museum in Manchester.

Conclusion

The scene that followed was unforgettable.

Stiles and Cohen collapsed in a tearful embrace on the ground, young Ball turned wild cartwheels, and Bobby Charlton dropped to his knees, fuelled by emotion.

Soon the players, who had forgotten the crippling weariness of a few minutes before, were hugging and laughing and crying with Ramsey and the reserves, who must go through their lives with bitter-sweet memories of how it looked from the touchline.

“Ramsey, Ramsey,” the crowd roared!

Eventually, Moore led his men up to the Royal Box to receive the gold Jules Rimet trophy from the Queen, and the slow, ecstatic lap of honour began “Ee-aye-addio, we’ve won the Cup,” sang the crowd, as Moore threw it in his arc above his head and caught it again.

After a shocking start in 1950, England were on top of the world within 16 years.

Note: This article has been posted at Cricketsoccer as CSdesk on 30/07/2020 England on top of the world

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Faisal Caesar

No surprise, England win

Obviously, England would strike back after the defeat at Southampton and in the end they not only bounced back at Old Trafford but bagged the series at Oval. 

There might be a school of thought that despite winning the toss at Old Trafford and Oval, Jason Holder’s decision to field was not correct, but the way, West Indian batters failed to counter the swing and pace of England bowlers, the opposite decision might not have made a big change. 

Stuart Broad became the new member of 500-club, while there had been some impressive batting from Ollie Pope, who along with Jos Buttler stabilized the ship on Day 1. On Day 2, there were jitters but that man Broad pulled the innings out of the mud and his swashbuckling half-century set the tone for the rest of days. 

England would win and this is not a surprise! 

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Faisal Caesar 

Bolivia stun Brazil

There is always the first time in life – at times they come as pleasant surprise while at times, they leave a long-lasting scar in the heart and mind. The surprise is the spice of life and lifeblood of sports – football, in particular, just does not get better when the surprising element is missing.

Back on July 25, 1993, when Bolivia shocked Brazil at Estadio Hernando Siles, La Paz in the World Cup Qualifiers for USA 94 – the footballing world was spiced up. Back in Rio de Janerio, anger and frustration were at their peak, but in Bolivia, it was a party.

For the first time in their World Cup Qualifying history, Brazil had been beaten – neither by Argentina nor by Uruguay, but by a team, who were always regarded as a jolly-bash for the Selecao.

The 1993 playoffs were the last South American qualifiers in a format other than the current one.

Chile were suspended, so the remaining 9 teams, divided into two independent groups, would fight for 3.5 places in the United States 1994.

In Group B Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, and Bolivia lived together.

The latter two were facing La Paz for the second date of the competition that awarded two direct places for the final phase of North America.

In Group A, the latter should face Australia in a repechage.

In the opening day, Bolivia provided an offensive football demonstration by beating Venezuela 7–1 in Puerto Ordaz.

The second engagement would be at La Paz against Brazil, which had drawn 0-0 in Ecuador on the first date and boasted an unbeaten record.

They faced the best generation of Bolivian footballers in history with the squad led by Claudio Taffarel, Rai, and Bebeto.

Supported by a crowd and dressed in white, Azkargorta's squadron went out to fight its match against Carlos Alberto Parreira's men.

The high altitude would be a big challenge for the Selecao, but still, they were Brazil, and such challenges should not halt their progress.

Bolivia controlled the match.

Brazil chased shadows.

Brazil’s nature of playing football clashed with the midfield category of Milton Melgar, Julio César Valdivieso, Marco Etcheverry, and Erwin Sánchez. The main emotions would come in the add-on: Sanchez had a golden chance to open the score with a penalty kick, but Taffarel blocked the punch with his legs. His luck would change at the close of the match.

When the clock was dying, Etcheverry received a long pass and stacked several players on the left. The Devil delayed the resolution and ran out of angle, so he decided to send a ground center in the search for a companion. His finisher went straight to Taffarel, who starred in a real accident when he bounced the ball to the bottom of his own goal with his foot.

Bolivia 1 Brazil 0.

The explosion of Hernando Siles had not yet silenced its echoes when Brazil left with everything in search of a tie.

Alvaro Pena, entered in the 57th minute, received a brilliant pass from Etcheverry to face and beat Taffarel again with a dry right leg footline.

Bolivia 2 Brazil 0.

Brazil suffered the first defeat in the history of the contest, while Bolivia unleashed the largest sporting festival ever recorded.

The victory was a fantasy made real, a little fellow bringing down a giant. Bolivians are not a different a species than their Brazilian neighbors, but in population, terms are outnumbered 23 times over.

Back home, Parreira was blasted. The passionate fans started to lose faith in Brazil, and ultimately Brazil qualified for the World Cup, and guess what, they broke the jinx of 24 years by lifting the trophy for the fourth time.

For Bolivia, the USA 94 journey ended in disgrace.

There would be no adventure.

Note: This article has been posted at Cricketsoccer as CSdesk on 26/07/2020 Bolivia stun Brazil  

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Faisal Caesar