Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Exciting News – Football Roundup South America

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Peñarol’s new stadium is coming along nicely. The Uruguayan 5-time Copa Libertadores winner continues to build on a new arena, that was originally supposed to be done by June this year. So far, the building time comprises 21 months. Since the club was trying to build a new own home for over 80 years now, some more months most likely won’t hurt anybody.

The capacity of the stadium lies at 40.005, which is quite small considering there’s nearly twice as much members in the club. Peñarol gave supporters the option to buy lifetime tickets. The premium boxes were already sold out a year ago.


After the season finale in Argentina, we’re not done just yet, but let’s get through the basics first. New champion and cup winner are the Boca Juniors, you surely heard about that by now. San Lorenzo as second, Rosario Central as Copa Argentina finalist and River Plate (defending champions) as well as Huracán (best team in Copa Sudamericana not yet qualified) all made it into next year’s Copa Libertadores.

The sixth and final participant will be determined by the so-called Liguilla pre-Libertadores. The four best and not yet qualified teams from the Argentinian league face off in a little “tournament”. The semifinals Racing Club – Estudiantes and Independiente – Belgrano will be one-legged, while the winners will face each other home and away in the final.

The dates are November 19 and 20 for the semifinals and November 29 as well as December 5 for the final.

A similar tournament is being played for Copa Sudamericana access, with 12 clubs.


The international break, quite obviously, is on everyone’s minds right now. South America’s World Cup qualification continues and with Ecuador – Uruguay, the prime matchup is quickly found. Both teams have been perfect so far, winning each of their first two contests. The visiting two-time World Cup winner gets Edinson Cavani back after his ridiculous suspension dating back to the Copa América match against Gonzalo Jara and Chile. Luis Suárez is still out thanks to his lengthy suspension from the World Cup.

Centerback Gímenez stayed in Madrid with his home club Atlético due to injury as well, ripping open a whole in the successful pairing with his club colleague Godín.


Argentina is under tremendous and unexpected early pressure after failing to score a single goal in their first two qualifiers, leaving them with one point. Now Brazil is visiting Buenos Aires, featuring a huge boost as they have in-form captain Neymar return to the national team after his own Copa América suspension. In his last three games for Barcelona, he scored 5 goals and you have to wonder how Messi-less Argentina wants to stop him and the incredible Douglas Costa, who has been turning heads in Germany ever since his arrival at Bayern Munich.

Argentina’s problems don’t exactly dwindle down, as they also miss Tévez and Agüero. They visit Colombia on Tuesday to play a team that welcomes back James Rodriguez after a lengthy absence.

Here are the matchups of week 3:

Bolivia – Venezuela  (Nov. 12, 9pm CET)

Ecuador – Uruguay  (Nov. 12, 10pm CET)

Chile – Colombia  (Nov. 13, 12:30am CET)

Argentina – Brazil  (Nov. 13, 1am CET)

Peru – Paraguay  (Nov. 14, 3:15am CET)


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