Uruguay national football team

Infobox National football team
Name = Uruguay
Badge = Uruguay football association.svg
FIFA Trigramme = URU
Nickname = "Charrúas"
"La Celeste Olímpica" (The Olympic Sky Blue)
"La Celeste" (The Sky Blue)
Association = Asociación Uruguaya
de Fútbol
Confederation = CONMEBOL (South America)
Coach = flagicon|Uruguay Oscar Tabarez, 2006-
Captain = Diego Lugano
Most caps = Rodolfo Rodríguez (79)
Top scorer = Héctor Scarone (31)
Home Stadium = Estadio Centenario
FIFA Rank = 20| 1st ranking date = August 1993
FIFA max = 14
FIFA max date = May 1994
FIFA min = 76
FIFA min date = December 1998
Elo Rank = 13
Elo max = 1
Elo max date = various dates 1920-31
Elo min = 46
Elo min date = March 1980
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pattern_la2=|pattern_b2=|pattern_ra2=
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First game = Flagicon|Uruguay Uruguay 2 - 3 Argentina Flagicon|Argentina (Montevideo, Uruguay; 16 May, 1901)
Largest win = Flagicon|Uruguay Uruguay 9 - 0 Bolivia Flagicon|Bolivia (Lima, Peru; 9 November, 1927)
Largest loss = Flagicon|Uruguay Uruguay 0 - 6 Argentina Flagicon|Argentina (Montevideo, Uruguay; 20 July, 1902)
World cup apps = 10
World cup first = 1930
World cup best = Winners, 1930 and 1950.
Regional name = Copa América
Regional cup apps = 40
Regional cup first = 1916
Regional cup best = Winners, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1923, 1924, 1926,
1935, 1942, 1956, 1959,
1967, 1983, 1987, 1995.
Confederations cup apps = 1
Confederations cup first = 1997
Confederations cup best = 4th, 1997The Uruguay national football team is controlled by the Asociación Uruguaya de Fútbol.

Uruguay is one of the most successful national football teams in the world. They have won two FIFA World Cups, including the first ever World Cup in 1930 as hosts, beating Argentina 4-2 in the final. They won their second title in 1950, upsetting hosts Brazil 2-1 in the final match. They also won the Gold Medals in football at the Summer Olympics twice, in 1924 and 1928, before the creation of the World Cup. They have also won the Copa América fourteen times, tied with Argentina, for most in America. They also won the 1980 Mundialito, a tournament among former World Cup champions Uruguay hosted in 1980 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first World Cup. Their success is amplified by the fact that the nation has a very small population. Uruguay is the only country in the world to win a World Cup with a general population of under 4 million inhabitants. The second smallest country to have won the World Cup is Argentina with a total population of over 41 million people.

History

Prior to 1916, Uruguay played more than 30 matches, of which all but one were against Argentina. The inaugural Copa America provided Uruguay with more varied opposition. Victories over Chile and Brazil along with a tie against Argentina enabled Uruguay to win the tournament. The following year Uruguay hosted the competition, and retained the title by winning every game. The 1919 Copa America saw Uruguay's first defeat in the tournament, a 1-0 defeat in a playoff with Brazil which went to two periods of extra time, the longest Copa America match in history.

In 1924 the Uruguay team traveled to Paris to become the first South American team to compete in the Olympic Games. In contrast to the physical style of the European teams of the era, Uruguay played a style based around short passes, [cite web | title=Football's debt to Uruguay|work=BBC Sport| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport3/worldcup2002/hi/team_pages/uruguay/newsid_1907000/1907148.stm| accessmonthday=15 October |accessyear=2006] and won every game, defeating Switzerland 3-0 in the gold medal match. In the 1928 Summer Olympics Uruguay went to Amsterdam to defend their title, again winning the gold medal after defeating Argentina 2-1 in the final.

Following the double Olympic triumph, Uruguay was chosen as the host nation for the first World Cup, held in 1930, the centenary of Uruguay's independence. During the World Cup, Uruguay won all its matches, and converted a 1-2 half-time deficit to a 4-2 victory against Argentina at the Estadio Centenario. Due to the refusal of some European teams to participate in the first World Cup, the Uruguayan Football Association urged other countries to reciprocate by boycotting the 1934 World Cup played in Italy. For the 1938 World Cup, France was chosen as host, contrary to a previous agreement to alternate the Championships between South America and Europe, so Uruguay again refused to participate.

Uruguay again won the World Cup in 1950, beating hosts Brazil in a surprise result at the Maracanã Stadium, a match known as the "Maracanazo".

Since 1950, the national team has had mixed performances in the World Cup, achieving fourth place in 1954 and 1970, but failing to qualify on several occasions. A new generation headed by Francescoli emerged in the mid-1980s, which qualified for the 1986 and 1990 World Cups, reaching the second round. During the 2000s, the less successful generation of Recoba, Forlán and Montero among others qualified for the 2002 World Cup, but were unable to leave the group stage.

Nevertheless, during the same time period from the 1950s, Uruguay won the Copa America six times, most recently in 1995, when Uruguay also hosted the tournament. Each of the seven occasions when the Copa America has been hosted in Uruguay has resulted in the Uruguayan team winning the tournament.

tadium

Since 1930, Uruguay have played their home games at the Estadio Centenario in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo. The stadium was built as a celebration of Uruguay centenary of independence, and had a capacity of 100,000 when first opened. The stadium hosted several matches in the 1930 World Cup, including the final, which was watched by a crowd of 93,000. [ [http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/releases/en/fwc_origin_en.pdf FIFA World Cup Origin] , FIFA Media Release. Retrieved on October 16, 2006.] Crowds for Uruguay's home matches vary greatly depending on the importance of the match and the quality of the opposition. World Cup qualifying matches often attract crowds of between 60,000 and 70,000, but friendlies sometimes have attendances significantly below 20,000.

Kit

Current Uruguay kits were adopted in 1910 as an homage to the now defunct River Plate F.C. (the old Uruguayan River club, although the current CA River Plate use a similar red and white striped kit at home and often a light blue away jersey too).

The first international match ever for a Uruguayan team took place in Montevideo in 1889 against "Buenos Aires Team". The "Montevideo Team",playing as the first Uruguay national representative,was the still active Montevideo Cricket Club (now only at rugby). The first official international was played again in Montevideo in 1901. In that occasion the Uruguay national team used Albion F.C kit: Albion, in fact, had won the first game outside Uruguay, over Argentine club Retiro in 1896 at Buenos Aires.After this game, between 1901-1910, several games between Uruguay and Argentina had Uruguay wearing striped blue and white and Argentina a plain turquoise jersey, the direct opposite to the kits from 1910 to the present day.The red kit was used in all the Copa América of Santa Beatriz in Peru in 1935 where Uruguay won the tourney. After that was never used again until 1991 when it was finally adopted as away jersey.

Four stars appear above the team logo on the jersey. Two represent Uruguay's 1930 and 1950 World Cup victories whereas the other two indicate the gold medal win at the 1924 and 1928 Summer Olympics, considered at that time the most important national teams world-wide football competition.

Last and next games

*Last game: fb|Uruguay 1 - 2 fb-rt|Argentina - Buenos Aires, Argentina - October 11, 2008 - WCQ2010.

*Next game: fb|Bolivia - La Paz, Bolivia - October 14, 2008 - WCQ2010.

"KEY: F = Friendly match; WCQ2010 = 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification"

Current players

Current squad

Below is the squad for 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification against Ecuador on 10 September, 2008.caps and goals as of 10 September, 2008.
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Recent Call Ups

The following players have also been called up to the Uruguay squad after Copa America.

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Famous players

*Hugo de León
*Carlos Aguilera
*José Leandro Andrade
*Víctor Rodríguez Andrade
*Pablo Bengoechea
*Carlos Bueno
*Martín Cáceres
*Julio Montero Castillo
*Luís Alberto Cubilla
*Víctor Espárrago
*Daniel Fonseca
*Diego Forlán
*Javier Chevantón
*Enzo Francescoli
*Diego Lugano
*Ladislao Mazurkiewicz
*Paolo Montero
*José Nasazzi
*Omar Oscar Míguez
*Santiago Ostolaza
*Rubén Paz
*Álvaro Recoba
*Ángel Romano
*José Santamaría
*Héctor Scarone
*Juan Alberto Schiaffino
*Rubén Sosa
*Obdulio Varela
*Darío Silva
*Marcelo Saralegui
*Gianni Guigou
*Venancio Ramos
*Víctor Hugo Diogo
*Darío Pereyra
*Roberto Matosas
*Pedro Virgilio Rocha
*Fernando Álvez
*Oscar Miguez
*Alcides Ghiggia
*Pedro Petrone
*Gustavo Poyet
*Antonio Alzamendi
*José Batlle Perdomo
*William Castro
*Fernando Kanapkis

Managers

Trivia

*Uruguay and Argentina hold the record for the most international matches played between two countries. [ [http://www.rsssf.com/tablesa/argurures.html Argentina-Uruguay Matches 1901-2001] . "RSSSF".] The two teams have faced each other 161 times since 1901. The first match against Argentina was the first official international match to be played outside the United Kingdom and Ireland. [Although Canada and the United States played two internationals in 1885 and 1889, neither match is considered official; Canada did not play an official international until 1904 and the USA did not play one until 1916.]

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.rsssf.com/tablesu/uru-intres.html RSSSF archive of results 1902-]
* [http://www.auf.org.uy/ The Official Uruguay football association website]
* [http://www.uruguayanplayers.pro.tc Uruguayan Players in the world]

Titles