South American Qualifiers for South Africa 2010

[CTG]

Bolivia played with a "B" team to have their top team against Argentina on Wednesday. It's not a surprise Colombia beat them.

Why would that be? They would have a chance vs Colombia with their A team, but will lose vs Argentina even with their best and most rested team. It doesn't seem to make sense...

I guess Chulk can give a pretty assured answer on whether it made sense or not... 

I wanted to insult him first but how could I overtake a Brasilian in that...

[Chulk]

Bolivia played with a "B" team to have their top team against Argentina on Wednesday. It's not a surprise Colombia beat them.

Why would that be? They would have a chance vs Colombia with their A team, but will lose vs Argentina even with their best and most rested team. It doesn't seem to make sense...

I guess Chulk can give a pretty assured answer on whether it made sense or not... 

I wanted to insult him first but how could I overtake a Brasilian in that...

Well, I see why Dup did it (they didn't lose in La Paz) but I really wonder how would Hungary do at 3500m over sea level... Or in a South Africa (oh, yes. We'll be there, will you?)

[CTG]

We'll be there, will you?

The point is that we are not expected to be there, while the strong Argentina... well... 6-1 versus Bolivia... from the so called best team of South America... 5 goals difference is a lot! Even if the coach is a big fat drug addict "handball" player...

Sorry! Good luck to the next matches - already without Maradona. He's a damned bad coach.

[Chulk]

You really can notice I was unbelievable mad, right?
The thing is Maradona did all previous analysis of the match wrong. He thouhgt those damned 3500m wouldn't be such an issue. HUGE mistake! You can see how it affects a player by seeing how Mascherano (Yes, Mascherano!) stood still and lost his man several times, opening his mouth as much as he could, in an attemp to catch some air...
I will let myself go on with the explanation in next update, probably Thursday night.

[Chulk]

12th round update!

Venezuela	2	-	0	Colombia
Bolivia	6	-	1	Argentina
Brazil	3	-	0	Peru
Chile	0	-	0	Uruguay
Ecuador	1	-	1	Paraguay

Venezuela had to win, and they did it. They could have scored a couple more times, too.

Bolivia gave Argentina its biggest defeat in Argentina's NT history (1-6 against Czechoslovakia, in '58's WC). Maradona's tactic was completely wrong. He played 4-4-2, which was about right, but played Papa as a Left Side Back (his best characteristic is not precisely his defense...), 2 Side MidFielders whose defense isn't the best either (M. Rodriguez & L. Gonzalez) and 2 really fast Forwards (Messi & Tevez) where it was obvious they wouldn't be able to do what they do best, when the oxigen is lacking, as it does in La Paz... Hope we learnt the lesson for the future.

Brazil was solid against the worst team right now, and clearly relaxed or else the diference would have been much bigger.

Chile got a draw playing with only 10 men against Uruguay, who pushed hard but couldn't score.

Same as against Brazil, Ecuador deserved to win by a couple of goals (at least) but failed to score and Paraguay scored in the very last minute.


Standings

TEAM	PTS	GP	W	D	L	GF	GA	Dif
Paraguay	24	12	7	3	2	19	9	10
Brasil	21	12	5	6	1	19	5	14
Chile	20	12	6	2	4	17	14	3
Argentina	19	12	5	4	3	18	13	5
Uruguay	17	12	4	5	3	21	10	11
Colombia	14	12	3	5	4	6	10	-4
Ecuador	14	12	3	5	4	14	19	-5
Venezuela	13	12	4	1	7	14	22	-8
Bolivia	12	12	3	3	6	19	25	-6
Perú	7	12	1	4	7	6	26	-20

Nex round (13th) will be played around 06/June/2009

Paraguay	-	Chile
Perú	-	Ecuador
Bolivia	-	Venezuela
Uruguay	-	Brasil
Argentina	-	Colombia

[Duplode]

Argentina v. Mexico is a matchup with a long history, a World Cup classic should I say. Too bad we'll likely have it as a mere qualifying playoff this time