By David Owen
June 23 – South American teams have excelled in the second round of World Cup group matches, taking over from CONCACAF as the competition’s most successful region. While this could be interpreted as an example of making home advantage count, host-nation Brazil, held to a goalless draw by Mexico, were ironically the only South American side not to win their second match at the tournament.
Lionel Messi’s stunning last-minute strike for Argentina against Iran ensured that his country joined Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and Ecuador in registering a victory in their penultimate group game.
The six-strong CONMEBOL contingent have now earned an impressive 77.8% of the points theoretically available to them all told, overhauling the region bracketing North and Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF), whose teams had compiled the most impressive record in the opening round of matches.
CONCACAF, spurred by Costa Rica’s authoritative win over Italy and impressive draws for Mexico and the United States, are comfortably the tournament’s second-most successful region, with 58.3% of available points.
Europe, with by far the biggest quota of teams in Brazil, continues to underperform, with three of its contingent – world champions Spain, England and World Cup debutants Bosnia & Herzegovina – already eliminated from contention.
With 13 of the 32 qualifiers for Brazil 2014, European teams sometimes have to play each other in the groups, making some defeats inevitable. Nonetheless, heavyweights England and Spain both lost their second matches to teams from other confederations, while Germany and Portugal were held to thrilling draws.
Overall, UEFA teams now languish with a score of 43.6% of available points, having lost 12 of their 26 matches.
As Ghana’s display against Germany exemplified, African teams have started to show their quality after a slow start. Both Nigeria and Algeria secured impressive victories, to leave themselves with a good chance of progressing to the knockout phase. Overall, Africa’s score has now risen to 36.7%.
Which leaves Asia, whose four representatives have still to register a victory in eight attempts. While only Australia have been left with no chance of qualifying after two games, it now seems quite likely that the knockout stages will proceed with no Asian presence.
While Asian teams performed creditably four years ago in South Africa, registering four group-stage victories, this hugely diverse and populous region now seems to be sliding backwards, although its representatives could be said to have suffered from a tough draw in Brazil.
At any rate, a return of three draws from eight matches and just 12.5% of points available can hardly be considered acceptable, even if Iran were unfortunate to be deprived of a well-deserved point against well-fancied Argentina by Messi’s moment of inspiration.
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