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Originally Posted by Locke
Hmmm....I'd tend to disagree somewhat. I'd agree with the fact that other SA teams are undoubtedly second class citizens in footballing terms. No argument there.
However, I find that they mitigate that with consistency. Brazil and Argentine are unquestionably very inconsistent at their level. One day Brazil lights it up and then they flounder. The other SA teams are generally of a fairly high quality that they maintain. As such they beat or draw, or at least gain results from teams such as Brazil and Argentina during qualifying. Hell, wasnt Paraguay first in qualifying for a few months in Conmebol?
Right now Chile is a solid 4 points ahead of Argentina in qualifying and both they and Paraguay lead Argentina.
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I think teams like Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay and Ecuador have a huge home advantage when they play World Cup qualifers. The US doesn't have this advantage.
The US produce better results abroad on neutral fields. They have a World Cup quarterfinal appearance in 2002 and now a Confederations Cup final appearance. This is an amazing tournament for the US playing Italy, Brazil, Egypt, Spain and probably Brazil again.. doesn't get much better than that.
What have any South American team not named Brazil or Argentina done on neutral ground?