Africa's first World Cup has a dominant noise, the buzz of the vuvuzela. Its drone, novel at first, tiresome in large doses, has the effect of making the endless repetition of the official song sound quite welcome by comparison. Waka, Waka, This Time for Africa is a hit, and an appropriate anthem for 2010. The words celebrate the continent where the tournament is taking place, but the talent and the voice of the Colombian singer Shakira are South American.
The Latinos are so far ahead in a theoretical league table, that if the World Cup were awarded on points accumulated and not to countries but to confederations, Conmebol, which houses the 10 nations of South America, would already be preparing to lift the trophy. Teams from the continent make up half of the quarter-finalists. Argentina and Brazil have won all their matches, Uruguay have won three out of four and conceded just the single goal. Paraguay topped a group including the deposed world champions, Italy. Chile's exciting progress - at least in the group phase - was curtailed only by their fellow South Americans from Brazil.
There is no catch-all theory for why the South Americans have thrived more than some notable Europeans - Italy, France and England all fell before the last-eight stage. But Diego Maradona, the head coach of Argentina, offered a simple explanation during one of his entertaining, and often instructive, press conferences. "One explanation is that our qualifying tournament is much more competitive than in Europe," he said. "I have no doubt that, say, Ecuador, who did not get through, would have done well here. Now look at Europe. They have matches against the likes of the Faroe Islands."
With that, Maradona smirked, fully remembering how outsiders, many of them in Europe, had giggled when Maradona's Argentina lost a qualifying match, and conceded six goals, away in Bolivia during their troubled build-up to the World Cup. His point is that games against Bolivia or Ecuador or Peru are all tough; that his, Brazil's, Uruguay's, Paraguay's and Chile's teams had lived, learned and triumphed under the equivalent of tournament conditions merely to make it to South Africa. That there are few easy games in the arduous, 18-match, round-robin that sorts out who represents Conmebol at World Cups.
A given is that South America, much of it a hard territory in which to eke out a living, produces tough, talented footballers. At the moment, it also has a high concentration of prolific goal-scorers. The blessings enjoyed by Argentina are well documented - their squad includes last season's leading marksmen from the Champions League winners (Inter Milan's Diego Milito) and the Spanish champions (Barcelona's Lionel Messi). Also obvious is the potent manpower of Uruguay, five of whose six goals so far have been shared by Atletico Madrid's Diego Forlan, twice winner of European football's Golden Shoe and Ajax's Luis Suarez, leading scorer in the Dutch Eredivisie.
And, accepting Maradona's argument, let it be pointed out that Chile also boasted the leading scorer in a very competitive league: Humberto Suazo scored 10 times in Conmebol World Cup qualifying. Suazo's lack of full fitness in South Africa certainly hampered Chile, whose creative play was sharper than their finishing. Unlike many of, say, the African teams, the South Americans kept the same coaches for the finals that had overseen the key stages of qualifying. Several then made brave selection decisions.
Maradona left Javier Zanetti and Estaban Cambiasso, both Champions League winners in May, out of his squad; Marcelo Bielsa, the Chile coach, declined to hear Roma's David Pizarro hint at reversing the international retirement he had announced in 2006. Brazil's Dunga might have courted popularity by picking Ronaldinho or Adriano. He did not. These coaches evidently had their dogmas and stuck with them. Dunga may be heavily criticised for a conservative attitude, but the way Brazil played against Chile on Monday served to remind that he values flair - Robinho and Kaka - as much as he has a penchant for muscular midfielders and defenders.
Adventurous football had been a shared Conmebol trademark, reckons Ivan Zamorano, the former Inter, Real Madrid and Chile striker. He was pleased to see his country equal the last-16 placing of 12 years ago, when he and Marcelo Salas led a potent Chilean strike-force in the France World Cup. "South American football is gaining more and more prestige," Zamorano said. "Of course Brazil and Argentina are at the forefront, but the depth of our football is stronger than ever. More than anything our teams are making statements in favour of attack.
"Paraguay play with three strikers, Argentina with a sort of 3-2-1-4 formation. It's been obvious we have all come here to show what we can do." @Email:sports@thenational.ae
