Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina all qualified for the knockout stages. There wasn’t a South American team that didn’t advance past the groups. Why have they been so successful?I’m not really sure what the answer is to this, so I’m quite hoping that this will trigger some suggestions (type away in the comment box at the bottom of the page).
I am really enjoying watching the South American teams. All five of them have qualified playing good football. With the exception of Brazil all are playing with three forwards, proper forwards, not wide players with one in the middle. This means that playing defensively isn’t really an option.
The sides play with flair, they move the ball around well and quickly. They all have stand out individuals but they have been playing as a team. Unlike some of the European nations who look like eleven individuals put together, the South American sides seem to have real team spirit with eleven players who fit together to actually create a team.
All of them seem keen on playing passing football. Long balls are out of the question. It seems important to keep the ball on the ground. Chile in particular have been very impressive to watch. Against Spain yesterday they showed brilliantly how to use space and find gaps to exploit, even after they were down to ten men.
What’s more impressive is that Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay on paper aren’t that impressive. Chile may have some good young players including the impressive Alexis Sanchez and Arturo Vidal. Uruguay have Diego Forlan, Luis Suarez and Fernando Muslera. Great individual talents, but the rest of the teams are average. Paraguay in particular have a lot of average players who are playing so well together.
Argentina and Brazil obviously have great players but Argentina left out Cambiasso and Zanetti. Brazil left out Adriano, Alex, Diego, Ronaldinho and Pato. Even so, both sides have played excellent football without really looking like they’ve been challenged yet. Possibly more impressive, is that Argentina very nearly didn’t qualify for the World Cup – even with their unbelievably talented squad there were doubts over how they would perform simply because coach, Diego Maradona is so unpredictable.
South American sides are noted for flair, creativeness and passing ability. However when defending, they all are showing no fear and have a fantastic work ethic to get men back quickly and behind the ball. It is a pleasant surprise that there is so much praise for the South American defensives at the moment when so often the focus is on their attacking play.
As I said I’m not really sure why they are all doing so well. Maybe a big factor is that they look like they are enjoying themselves and having fun which I think is important at a World Cup. It may be that other sides aren’t performing to the best of their ability which is making the South American sides appear better but I think that would be harsh. There is a very real chance that we could have half of the quarter finalists from South America (Brazil play Chile in the last 16).
I’m intrigued to read what suggestions people come up with.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter
Tags: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Doron, Paraguay, SA 2010, South Africa 2010, South America, Uruguay, WC, WC 2010, World Cup, World Cup 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Doron Salomon, Doron Salomon, Doron Salomon, Doron Salomon, Andy Francos and others. Andy Francos said: RT @DoronSalomon: **NEW WORLD CUP POST** – Why are the South Americans doing so well? -http://tinyurl.com/2uj5ay9 via @WC_Statistics #wo … [...]
It might be implemented in the south american psyche at a young age to want to play passing, attacking football that has led them to reap the rewards at this tournament. European teams need big improvements in coaching in my opinion. A lot of the other European nations (except Spain and maybe Portugal) have a big fear of losing, resulting in them drawing more of their games, when wins are vital in advancing beyond the group stages. This was definitely Italy’s problem this year, they started pressing when they were already 2-0 down to Slovakia which was just too little too late.
I think the fact that no european nation has won this tournament outside their own continent looks set to continue.
good point there about footballing education jay, though maybe not about the coaching point, as cappello and del bosque are probably the 2 most decorated managers there, along with lippi, and England and Italy have been a bit disappointing, while A2 fican teams deliberately chose European coaches. On the other hand, the major disappointments (Italy and France) have had their coaches for some time, and so may have over relied on players who are past it, despite their reps (Cannavaro and Henry) while other managers are in major tournaments for only the first or second time, and so have a fresher outlook on the players they inherited. Its just a idea, i havent actually looked anything up
I should have made it clearer, by coaching I meant at youth and academy type levels in European countries, especially England.
I read a BBC article the other day that said that the Bundesliga makes £500m less money than the Premier League, yet invests £20m more in its youth system. This needs to be improved, and I think that National Football Centre in Burton is a good step towards a better youth system in this country, with a proper production line of talent.
As for the South American countries, their respective associations must be operating their youth systems on such miniscule budgets compared to England, yet produce players like Sanchez, Suarez and others. It must be something they get taught at “street level” at an early age that keeps their development going on the cheap.
RE youth investment…
so in Europe Germany and Spain have similar systems…both spend big on youth and both encourage players to play about the youth teams for the second or reserve teams…in Spain and Germany the reserve sides compete in lower divisions and they can be promoted and relegated, kind of like the reserve side of a Premiership team in League 2 for example. The exposure to a proper form of competitive football has proven pedigree
in Italy, the reserve league doesn’t really exist, it’s replaced with a huge loan system and a model of co-ownership…if you are a good young player you may well be co-owned by a big parent club and a smaller club, the aim is you play games for your smaller club and when the big club feel they want you back as the development has been good enough they will buy the remaining 50% of the player – means the smaller club get a financial benefit from the development and ownership. italy also has a lot of young players included in first teams, a lack of financing in the league means they have strongly adopted the ferguson mantra of ‘if you’re good enough, you’re old enough’ – this is true of Germany as well, a perfect example would be Toni Kroos at FC Bayern (although Bayern did send him on loan for 18 months to Leverkusen)
the whole point of the above is that in a lot of european countries, if you are good enough, you play, france is another great example of that – hence the development of Montpellier as a side this year – Younes Belhanda and Karim Ait-Fana have been central to it…the Premier League has a decent youth infrastructure – the revamping of the reserve league (which you can read about here http://manunitedyouth.wordpress.com/) will start to help the competitive nature of it. The problem with the Premier League is that there is too much of a difference between the academies and standard of coaching at Man United, Arsenal etc and you’re smaller Premier League sides. the FA do very little to encourage this as well – all the sponsorship and tv money means clubs have transfer budgets that allow them to buy players in their prime. the new squad rules do want homegrown club players but im not sure they’ll make a huge difference. then there is also attitude – someone like Gael Kakuta has fantastic qualities and he featured a couple of times last year but he should either be included more or should have gone out on loan for a bit – the loan move of Jack Wilshere was an encouraging move and a step in the right direction. few clubs are truly bothered about youth development in england as it is seen as too much of a risk when the league’s demand immediate results
so south america – youth systems work differently there…in general it works like this:
there is almost no funding, everyone plays football, the clubs pick up as many of the kids as possible from a young age in the local areas and they play for the youth teams. the youth sides can have hundreds of players and there can be say 5 under 18 teams at one club. the coaching standard isn’t bad but the players grow up together and are encouraged to express themselves. in brazil in particular this is the way. due to rules of foreigners in squads there is a need for domestic players and so clubs are encouraged to turn to youth. as a result players can play at an incredibly young age in the first teams – robinho, neymar, anderson etc – where it has worked positively, or the well documented cases like Freddy Guarin, Sherman Cardenas and Nicolas Millan (made his debut aged 14 for Colo-Colo in chile) their early exposure worked against them (although guarin has settled at porto, and millan was offered a trial at everton recently). the thing for clubs in south america is they know if they put time into developing good young players they can sell them on to europe for big money – it’s a shame it works like that but that is the incentive.
the important difference for me, is that in south america a youth player is encouraged to express himself, enjoy football, play with his mates, and knows he’ll play first team if he’s good enough; in europe a youth player is encouraged to conform to a model, is managed very strictly, and will have limited opportunities (especially in the premiership) – it’s clear which path is the better
I doubt there really is a specific ‘reason’ for it. On quality alone i’m guessing most people would have predicted at least four of the five to qualify on the strength of their squads (although admittedly wouldn’t have predicted four to win their groups).
Argentina and Brazil is no surprise to anybody. Bar Spain, Chile got a relatively easy draw and were comfortably the second best team in their group. (even if their task was made more difficult by the Spain vs Switzerland result)
Imho Paraguay were the least impressive of the south american teams, being quite lucky to get a draw off Italy. (after playing *very* defensively) However the principle reason for their qualification was playing pretty well against Slovakia, who had a very poor game that day. I’d guess that between broadly equal teams, stuff like that happens in football and i wouldn’t read anything more into it.
Uruguay have been more impressive than Paraguay, destroying a vastly inferior South Africa, but they also played a very defensive first match against another underperforming European nation.
[...] Why are South American Teams doing so well? – WCS [...]
[...] semi finals start tomorrow and are heavily dominated by Europe. Having suggested only a week ago that the South American teams were doing so well the dominance by one continent at the World Cup has again [...]
[...] that Africa’s sole representation now lay with Ghana. In the meantime all the talk was of how impressive the South American teams had been, all five had made it through beyond the group [...]