World Cup Qualifying Update: CONMEBOL (South America)

June 24th, 2008 | by: Laurie | Comments Off

We’re six rounds into World Cup qualifying for the South American CONMEBOL teams, and Brazil is in 5th place out of ten countries. If this were the end of qualifying, Brazil would have missed automatic CONMEBOL qualification and would have to play the 4th place CONCACAF team for any shot at going to the World Cup. Show of hands if you predicted this?

Yeah, me neither.

Welcome to CONMEBOL qualifying, where Argentina and Brazil are always automatically expected to go through, and the competition is usually for the remaining two or three slots. Not so this year.

Paraguay is the shock #1 team with 13 points, followed by Argentina(11), Colombia(10), and Chile (10). And Brazil? Fifth, with nine points in six games, with draws to Argentina, Colombia and Peru and a shock 2-0 loss to Paraguay. (Full table is at the bottom of the post.)

The good news for Brazil is that only a third of the eighteen qualifying games have been played, and with luck Ricky Kaka will be back from knee surgery before too long. And Brazil is talking about firing coach Dunga, which could shake things up a bit.

But for the moment, here are how things stand:

World Cup Qualifying Nuts and Bolts

How many teams are in CONMEBOL?

Only ten: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

How does a CONMEBOL team get to World Cup?

Compared with all the twists, turns, pots and byes that we talked about yesterday in CONCACAF, CONMEBOL qualification is extremely straightforward. Ten teams, home and away legs with each one. total of eighteen games per country. Top four go through, fifth place plays the fourth-place CONCACAF team, home and away, for the final berth.

Where do things stand now?

The teams just finished the sixth of eighteen rounds. In the most recent round, Uruguay beat Peru 6-0, Bolivia beat Paraguay 4-2, Ecuador and Colombia had a nil-nil draw, Brazil and Argentina did the same, and Chile beat Venezuela 3-2.

Rounds 7 and 8 will take place on September 6 and 10.

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Paraguay	6	4	1	1	13	5	+8	13
Argentina	6	3	2	1	9	3	+6	11
Colombia	6	2	4	0	4	2	+2	10
Chile	6	3	1	2	9	9	0	10
Brazil	6	2	3	1	8	4	+4	9
Uruguay	6	2	2	2	15	6	+9	8
Venezuela	6	2	1	3	9	10	-1	7
Ecuador	6	1	2	3	7	13	-6	5
Bolivia	6	1	1	4	7	17	-10	4
Peru	6	0	3	3	3	15	-12	3

(Are you interested in blogging about any of these teams, or any other national teams currently not being covered for World Cup Blog? Email our editor, Daryl Grove, at daryl[at]theoffside[dot]com.)