Qualifying for the tournaments is easier overall for the big South American teams because they are much better than the weaker teams over the course of many games, but there is no comparison between the actual difficulty of the games. Weak South American teams are still incredibly difficult to beat. There isn’t a single easy game in CONMEBOL
Pre-1990’s I’d say Venezuela would have been THAT team. But today’s Venezuela is scoring bicycle kick goals in Brazil and getting out of there with a point. I believe football is catching up to, if not surpassing, baseball in popularity for the first time.
With the expansion they will most likely make it to the next World Cup. Should be amazing to see those players singing the national anthem of their country for the first time in a World Cup.
Suarez, Neymar and Messi are among the 8 South American players in history to reach 50 international goals.
Counting active players, Cavani is another one.
Tells you about how a massive feat that is in the region.
alexis also did it with 52
Good point! My data was outdated
…and still counting.
Qualifying for the tournaments is easier overall for the big South American teams because they are much better than the weaker teams over the course of many games, but there is no comparison between the actual difficulty of the games. Weak South American teams are still incredibly difficult to beat. There isn’t a single easy game in CONMEBOL
At the same time you can lose half your games and still qualify which you could obviously never do in UEFA.
UEFA is great for International stat padding.
Pre-1990’s I’d say Venezuela would have been THAT team. But today’s Venezuela is scoring bicycle kick goals in Brazil and getting out of there with a point. I believe football is catching up to, if not surpassing, baseball in popularity for the first time.
With the expansion they will most likely make it to the next World Cup. Should be amazing to see those players singing the national anthem of their country for the first time in a World Cup.
Agreed. It’s not like we have a Gibraltar or Malta or St Vincent and the Grenadines or Puerto Rico.