South America Day

That's just my title, not an official event. There's no such thing as South America Day, although there is a Europe Day. In fact there are three different Europe Days depending on where in Europe you are, a fact that sums up the progress of European federalism rather neatly.


At the start of the tournament there were six teams from South America. All of them except Ecuador made it into the last sixteen, and four of them played yesterday. Brazil v Chile was the standout game. My good friends Dave and Ann came over to watch it, and we all thought Chile were unlucky to go out on penalties.

Penalty shootouts are a bit like Shakespearean tragedies, except you don't know who the Macbeth is until the end. Yesterday it was Gonzalo Jara, whose effort hit the right hand post, rebounded back across the goal and nearly hit the opposite post, but didn't. Unlucky, but someone had to be.

Colombia v Uruguay was more of an Amadeus, if Mozart had been sent back to Salzburg for biting a courtier, and the play described the scenes as a whole bunch of makeweight Uruguayan Salieris tried and failed to perform without him. They were well beaten by a Colombian side that have crept up on the competition in roughly the same way as Uruguay did in South Africa, except likeably. With a starting eleven from eleven different clubs there was nothing to suggest they'd go far, but now they've got a quarter final against the hosts.

Uruguay must have wanted to come first at something, because their post-match interviews were the most overstated and absurd of the tournament so far. Here are the high points from the BBC report.

Uruguay boss Oscar Tabarez said the absence of striker Luis Suarez was not to blame for his side's World Cup exit - yes it was, and it's quite apparent that it was. Without Suarez they're quite ordinary.

"It's a breach of human rights that a player cannot go into a stadium where there are 80,000 people, or into a hotel with his team-mates, that he cannot work for four months," said Uruguay captain Diego Lugano - if this is typical of Uruguayan human rights legislation, then UKIP are unlikely to be suggesting a UK-Uruguay union any time soon.

"He has committed a crime, but this ban is barbarity. Not even a criminal would receive this penalty." Again, the first line of the Howard League for Penal Reform's mission statement must be never ever go as far as Uruguay.

But even Lugano struggled to fully match his manager's commitment to the fantasy realms, describing Suarez as irreplaceable. While he was being honest he could easily have gone for unspeakable, with Chiellini in the role of the inedible, but the reality is that without the unspeakable but irreplaceable they're likeable but unremarkable, and for the manager to admit it would be admirable but implausible.

So that's South America day, with north South America seeing off south South America. Tomorrow, something on Europe's tussle with Central America, currently playing out as I type.