By FRANCO PANIZO
Forget having one foot in the door. Uruguay is as close to having both in as any team could after playing just the first leg of a playoff series.
Uruguay all but looked to have assured its place in next summer’s World Cup in Brazil on Wednesday by going on the road and thrashing Jordan, 5-0. Five different players found the back of the net for the Uruguayans, including Maxi Pereira, Edinson Cavani and Cristian Rodriguez.
Pereira scored the winner against the overwhelmed Jordanians in the 22nd minute and Uruguay ran mostly rampant from there. Cristian Stuani and Nicolas Lodeiro added insurance goals before the 70th minute. Rodriguez netted eight minutes later before Cavani capped the masterful performance with a free kick strike in second-half stoppage time.
The return leg of the playoff series will be played in Montevideo, Uruguay on Nov. 20.
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What do you think of Uruguay’s 5-0 victory over Jordan? Impressed by the big win considering it came on the road? Are Jordan’s chances of reaching the 2014 World Cup over or under one percent?
Share your thoughts below.
Forza Celeste!!
The amazing thing is FIFA right now has Uruguay as one of the eight seeded teams for the WC. The eighth best team in the world doesn’t end up in a playoff narrowly making it to the WC. FIFA proves once again its lack of smart leadership.
Do you know how the ranking is made? Uruguay is in 6th place no only because of the quealyfiers, but because they are the reigning Southamerican champions.
And the fourth place finish in 2010.
It doesn’t sound fair to Costa Rica at all. They played Uruguay to qualify 4 years ago in which they lost. Mexico gets to play a weaker NZ. The football gods are doing all they can to get Mexico in, and Mexico is doing all they can to make it harder. We’ll find out in a couple of hours.
Even Uruguay, knowing the terrible condition of Mexico, would prefer to play a team like Jordan instead
Perhaps their is no corrolation, but this can’t help the image hit FIFA has taken for awarding Qatar the 2022 World Cup, a nation that finished 4th in its final WCQ group and third of four in its 2013 Gulf Cup of Nations group. Jordan, the Middle Eastern nation that actually made the playoff this cycle, just got smoked at home 5-0 by an underachieving Uruguay side. Why not let them host?
Certainly doesn’t help.
So much is made of the “emerging” football culture in Arab nations. While I have no doubt that they have some really passionate fans willing to invest a lot of time and money, the success just isn’t there. The North African teams barely make the Finals anymore now that the rest of their continent has awakened, and the Arab nations in Asia are clearly inferior to the East Asian sides – the top-finishing Arab team usually just has the dubious distinction of losing in the IC playoff.
Dat oil money
2 things move FIFA mountains:
CREAM and re-election votes. Asia has both.
And Asia wants more places in the finals??
The fact that the AFC gets 4.5 spots is even more ridiculous than CONCACAF getting 3.5
I rank Honduras better and Costa Rica toe to toe with Iran. But that’s just based on highlights I’ve see from their games
Mexico, Panama, and possibly Jamaica would have given Uruguay a more competitive home-and-away series than Jordan; that doesn’t seem up for much debate.
Yeah and they want more! Craziness.
no joke. and that is why it makes me so angry to hear people from FIFA and UEFA say they need more. no, they do not.
if they kept the 2010 format we could have been watching Mexico vs. Uruguay today! that would have been more exciting, but its probably better this way..
They rotate the spots, probably for next WC it’ll be Oceania vs.Conmebol and CONCACAF vs. Asia