If you have looked at some of the other pages that I have at the top of our home page, then you know just how complex and convoluted qualifying can be.
CONMEBOL is not that kind of group. CONMEBOL is simple. CONMEBOL is direct. CONMEBOL makes every other qualifying zone seem like an average citizens nightmare and a bureaucrats wet dream.
If you play futbol in South America, you need to do one thing to make the World Cup: beat the other teams in South America.
You play every team once at home, and once on the road. Month after month you rotate from home to the road, all around the continent, 90 minute battles in front of raucous crowds, against the very best players on the continent...and Bolivians.
This whole process is even easier this time around because perennial titans Brazil are already qualified. So there's an extra spot available for the usual almost qualifiers (I'm looking at you Columbia!).
After you play every team twice, the four teams with the best records get to join Brazil in the big dance. The fifth place gets a set of steak knives and a match against Asia's 5th place team for one last shot at Brazil 2014. Sixth place gets you fired (or fired at, depending on the country).
At the end of three years worth of hard work the golden tickets were claimed by Argentina, Columbia, Chile and Ecuador.
Uruguay got the fuzzy little lollipop that is the intercontinental play-in game against Asia's Jordan, but licked it and while like their reward, a spot in the 2014 World Cup. For more information about them and the rest of the South American contingent, check out our Meet the Teams posts.
And Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru got doodly-squat. As per usual. Better luck next time...losers*!
*Note, the insult losers is not intended to instigate a capitalist revolution against the Chavez-esque paradises of the losing South American sides, it was just a bit of raucous jingoism.
If you play futbol in South America, you need to do one thing to make the World Cup: beat the other teams in South America.
You play every team once at home, and once on the road. Month after month you rotate from home to the road, all around the continent, 90 minute battles in front of raucous crowds, against the very best players on the continent...and Bolivians.
This whole process is even easier this time around because perennial titans Brazil are already qualified. So there's an extra spot available for the usual almost qualifiers (I'm looking at you Columbia!).
After you play every team twice, the four teams with the best records get to join Brazil in the big dance. The fifth place gets a set of steak knives and a match against Asia's 5th place team for one last shot at Brazil 2014. Sixth place gets you fired (or fired at, depending on the country).
At the end of three years worth of hard work the golden tickets were claimed by Argentina, Columbia, Chile and Ecuador.
Uruguay got the fuzzy little lollipop that is the intercontinental play-in game against Asia's Jordan, but licked it and while like their reward, a spot in the 2014 World Cup. For more information about them and the rest of the South American contingent, check out our Meet the Teams posts.
And Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru got doodly-squat. As per usual. Better luck next time...losers*!
*Note, the insult losers is not intended to instigate a capitalist revolution against the Chavez-esque paradises of the losing South American sides, it was just a bit of raucous jingoism.
