Uruguay World Cup 2010 Team Profile

April 7th, 2010 | by: Daryl | View Comments

Uruguay have been drawn into World Cup 2010 Group A, along with France, Mexico and host nation South Africa. Not an easy group, but Uruguay will be glad to return to World Cup action after missing out in 2006.

Read on for our Uruguay team profile, which is hopefully informative but isn’t meant to be authoritative. So if you disagree with anything in the preview, feel free to do so via the comments.

Nickname: La Celeste Olímpica (The Olympic Sky Blue) or just La Celeste.

FIFA World Ranking as of March 31st 2010: #18

Coach: The man in charge is Oscar Tabárez. There’s not a great deal of info about Tabárez out there (at least not in English anyway), but I can tell you he’s been in charge since 2006 and has managed more club teams than you’ve had hot dinners. From Peñarol in his native Uruguay, to Deportivo Cali in Colombia, Boca Juniors in Argentina, Real Ovideo in Spain and even the might Milan in Italy (though only briefly, in 1996). Tabárez has lead Uruguay before, coaching Enzo Francescoli and co. to the last 16 at the 1990 World Cup, and recently made the semi-finals of the Copa America in 2007.

Key Players: The obvious standouts is striker Diego Forlan, who may need a haircut but has no trouble finding the back of the net. The Atletico Madrid striker won the Pichichi award for top scorer in La Liga last season, as well the European Golden Shoe. If Forlan doesn’t get you then Luis Suarez might. The strong but nimble forward has been banging in goals for Ajax (where he’s captain at 23) and has formed a productive international partnership with Forlan. Last but not least is captain and central defender Diego Lugano, who earns his money in the Turkish Superlig with Fenerbahçe.

Player with best YouTube video: Got to be Luis Suarez. The man can dribble.

Player with best name: Diego Lugano. Because you know at least one commentator will accidentally call him Diego Luna in the coming months.

Player with best nickname: Easily Diego Forlan, who’s known as “Cachabacha”, a fictional South American witch. I’ll leave you to guess why that is.

Qualification: Only just. Uruguay could have secured automatic qualification by beating Argentina in the final game of CONMEBOL qualifying, but lost 1-0 to an 84th minute goal instead, and so had to face a play-off against CONCACAF’s Costa Rica, which La Celeste won 2-1 over two legs. Doesn’t matter how you get there though, as long as you get there.

Interesting: The four stars above the Uruguay crest represent their two World Cup wins, plus two Olympic gold medals. But we’ll let it slide, because the two golds were won in 1924 and 1928, back when the summer Olympics was the only world championship for international football teams.

National Anthem:

Himno Nacional Uruguayo is apparently the longest national anthem in the world. For more on the anthem, read this.

Kit: Sky blue shirt, black shorts, black socks. The 2010 home jersey looks like this:


More detailed review here, or you can buy your Uruguay World Cup jersey in our store.

World Cup History:
1930 – Champions
1950 – Champions
1954 – Semi-Final
1962 – First Round
1966 – Quarter-Final
1970 – Semi-Final
1974 – First Round
1986 – Second Round
1990 – Second Round
2002 – First Round

Expectations: Group A is tough, but Uruguay will expect to make it to the last 16.

Squad: TBA

Blog: Esteban is following La Celeste on the Uruguay blog.

- More World Cup 2010 Team Profiles.