Sixty-four years ago, Uruguay pulled off
one of the greatest triumphs in the history of sport when they knocked off a
cocky Brazilian outfit who had already composed a celebratory samba. The venue,
the Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro (then the national capital, now
merely the chef-lieu of the eponymous
state) would thus be an appropriate place for the serving-up of a second dose
of poetic justice.
Colombia’s two goals came from a familiar
source: James Rodríguez. The Monaco man has been one of the revelations of the
tournament, and the prospect of a quarter-final battle between he and Neymar is
positively mouth-watering. The first goal, in the twenty-eighth minute, came
from outside the box and seemingly out of nowhere. Surrounded on four sides by
sky blue shirts, he received Abel Aguilar’s header on his chest and twisted around
to volley the ball in off the underside of the bar. The second, five minutes
after the break, was a product of his fruitful combination with Juan Guillermo
Cuadrado, as Cuadrado headed a Pablo Armero cross down to James’ boot for his
fifth of the tournament. Both were, naturally, followed by those celebratory
dances along the goal line which have helped to make los cafeteros one of the most enjoyable teams to watch in Brazil.
It wasn’t all one-way traffic. Around the
half-hour mark, Colombia were saved by some brilliant Carlos Sánchez defending
and by Edinson Cavani misfiring a free kick over the bar. The statistical
indicators of Colombia’s dominance – a 64-36 possession count and a 5-1 lead in
shots on target at half-time – were worn down by the end of the match as la celeste had a much better second
half. A missile from Cristian Rodríguez was saved just after the hour, while an
Edinson Cavani shot had the same result six minutes from the end of normal time.
But this match was all about Luis Suárez; the
Uruguayan players posed with his shirt in the dressing room before the match as
their feral supporters chanted his name. It takes a sick country to rally
behind a knuckle-dragging sub-human thug who has bitten three opposition
players in four years, and an even sicker country to make excuses for his
actions and to blame it on some imagined conspiracy. This is why it was so
great to see la celeste lose.
Uruguay, it seems, combines the chip-on-the-shoulder mentality of the small
country surrounded by larger and better neighbours, and the sense of
entitlement that comes from being white in a multi-racial region of the world.
For them to lose to a team who play beautiful soccer and who contain so many
members of the black race that Suárez hates was thus an appropriate outcome, a
modern-day maracanazo. ¡Fuerza Colombia!
Colombia 2 (James Rodríguez
28’, 50’) – Uruguay
0
Cautions: José María Giménez (Uru.) 55’; Diego
Lugano (Uru.) 77’; Pablo Armero (Colo.) 78’
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