SOUTH AMERICA'S CURSE CONTINUES
After Uruguay and Brazil lost in Russia on Friday evening, the great footballing continent is faced with an ongoing World Cup hex in Europe...
9
Although Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have combined for 9 World Cup titles, as good as any 3 European nations combined ...
No South American nation has won a World Cup in Europe since 1958...
PELE
1958 was the year that Pele was an irresistible force, tearing up record books as a 17-year-old phenomenon...
CLASSIC FOOTBALL
But that was 60 years ago. Since then the Old Continent has hosted 7 finals including this one (1966, 1974, 1982, 1990, 1998, 2006, 2018)
And in those 7 events, only 2 South American teams have reached the Final - Argentina in 1990 and Brazil in 1998 - and only 1 more reached the semi-finals (Brazil finished 4th in 1974)
3
Given that the 6 teams left alive in Russia are all European, that’s only 3 out of the last 28 semi-finalists from South America. The other 25 have all been European!
In the last Europe-based World Cup in 2006 there was a clean sweep of European teams in the last 4, and that will be the case again in Russia.
HAVE YOU MISSED
ANYTHING?
You can watch all of the goals and action on FIFA.com...
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS