Uruguay At The 2014 World Cup

Hello dear friends, it’s time to go to Brazil for the most important competition of them all, the World Cup. It’s a dream for any football player or manager, the path to eternal glory and fame. I managed to bring the Uruguay team to the World Cup with relative ease although it’s always tough to survive the difficult South American qualifying group. Now I had to be very careful with the player selection for the World Cup, I had some difficult decisions to make.

After thinking it over for quite some time I decided to leave out of the squad a couple of very important players, Diego Lugano and Diego Forlan. They are valuable and experienced players but given their age (34 and 35) it seemed that they were no longer able to sustain the workload that I require the players to perform. We were going to be underdogs in the World Cup and you can only compensate the lack of value with hard work, that’s why I decided to bring in a few youngsters to replace the veterans.

The FA had no requirements from the team, they just asked us to play well and go out of the tournament without too much shame. The bookmakers also thought that we were one of the weakest teams in the competition.

I chose to arrange a friendly game one week before the start of the competition, I picked a medium difficulty opponent: Bosnia. I was extremely pleased with our attacking force, we created loads of chances and scored at will. I was a bit disappointed and concerned about the defense, it was looking quite shaky.

Despite that I believed that we had a good chance of getting through the group stage, our opponents were not that valuable: Iran, Czech Republic and Costa Rica. Our opening game was with Iran, a pretty weak side that had only one exceptional player, a 20 year old right winger contracted to Bordeaux. We got off to a great start as my two best players punished Iran in the first ten minutes: Cavani rifled one in from 30 yards out and then Albin took advantage of a defensive error and pushed the ball into the empty net. We could have scored at least one more goal before the break but Cavani‘s corner kick header hit the crossbar. The second half was less entertaining, we failed to create any pressure so Iran survived until the final whistle with relative ease. The other game in our group produced a surprise result, Czech Republic were held to a 1-1 draw by Costa Rica.

The next game was decisive for the final group table, we had to face Czech Republic. They had a pretty strong team, especially upfront with Tomas Necid from Everton and my former Notts County player Tomas Pekhart. They also had a fantastic goalkeeper, Chelsea‘s Petr Cech. We started the game well, we were dominating and we took the lead 14 minutes into the game when Abel Hernandez set up Cavani for an easy finish. We seemed to be in control of the game but we got punished nine minutes before the break, their first shot on goal went in! It was quite frustrating but the team reacted well and Cavani struck again two minutes later. The second half saw Czech Republic pushing forward, we were under pressure but we also had great chances on counter attacks. Unfortunately Petr Cech was in top form, he saved some impossible shots. We kept on missing chances until the last minute when a wild shot from 35 yards out beat our keeper and went in! We missed another good chance right before the final whistle, we should have won this game… The other game of the group produced another surprise result, Iran beat Costa Rica 3-0! That meant that we only needed a draw in the last game to qualify.

Costa Rica had a decent team, their biggest stars were midfielder Celso Borges (Koln) and striker Bryan Ruiz (Espanyol). We dominated the start of the game but their sturdy defense proved to be very hard to surpass. Cavani made the difference again though, he set up Hernandez for an easy goal. Costa Rica were launching pretty dangerous counter attacks though, one of those nearly went all the way but the ball hit the post. We doubled our lead just before the break when left back Alvaro Pereira scored with a fine shot from the edge of the area. We missed two good chances right after the break but then we had a bit of trouble in handling the opponents and they deservedly clawed one back. The team woke up and closed the game in a few minutes, first Hernandez finished a counter attack and then Martin Caceres scored with a fine corner kick header. Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

Go to the next page to read the rest of the story.

We finished first in the group, I was quite pleased about that. I got even more pleased after taking a look at the other groups, some important upsets had happened. England finished last with only one point in their group, behind Portugal, Ghana and Chile! Germany were also last placed in their group behind Croatia, Japan and Cameroon!

Due to those upsets we had an improbable opponent in the last sixteen, we were going to face Japan!

They didn’t have any stars in their team but they had a bunch of extremely hard working and fast players, I wasn’t expecting an easy game. The first minutes of the game were fairly easy but Japan were looking good and causing us problems with their pace. I switched the strategy to counter and it paid off, Luis Suarez finished off a counter attack move that he carried on all by himself, he ran away with the ball and placed it in with a fine shot. We kept things under control after the goal and it looked like we were going to prevail. The second half saw Japan trying to react but they were leaving space for our counter attacks. We missed a couple of chances and, as it always happens, got punished 17 minutes from time when a free kick shot from 25 yards went past our keeper. It was getting frustrating again but one of the youngsters that I brought in clinched the game for us, a fine solo effort and a late goal!

That regen youngster is Richard Nunez, playing in Russia for Lokomotiv Moscow. I tested him in a friendly game, he scored twice then and I decided to give him a chance to shine in the World Cup. Well, I’m happy that he did :)

I was not pleased with the team’s performance in the Japan game though and I was sure that we had no chance to survive in the next game if we kept on playing like that. Our next opponents were mighty Italy, they defeated Ghana 4-2 after extra time. Everybody said that we had no chance of going through…

And they seemed to be right, Italy dominated the first minutes of the game. We had a huge chance on the break though but Hernandez was unable to beat Buffon. Three minutes later it happened, Italy scored one in cold blood and they were looking to be safely in control. We missed two more chances one on one with the keeper before half time, Buffon was looking unbeatable. We looked a bit better in the second half but kept on missing the chances. Italy were looking solid though, I had the feeling that they could score whenever they wanted to. and they did, twice! We got lucky with an own goal but never looked capable of causing the upset…

Brazil got knocked out by France while Spain managed to win the tournament. I was a bit disappointed with our performance although the fans and the FA were extremely pleased. I know that we couldn’t expect to do more but that’s what bothers me, I realized that I can’t do anything more with that team.

I felt that I achieved all that I could have with Uruguay, so I resigned. I had no perspective of improving the team’s performances so I decided to let go, I don’t like being hopeless. There were two interesting job vacancies after the tournament, England sacked Stuart Pearce while Brazil furiously sent their manager away. I applied for both jobs and I got one of them… Which one do you think that is? :)

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