Uruguayan Football History
Stories from Uruguay’s footballing history
In August 1913, Montevideo hosted a Brazilian football team for the first time when a combined São Paulo league side toured the Río de la Plata. While the first official Uruguay-Brazil international match took place in 1916, the Paulista visit was no less significant. Continue reading “[Footballing] Blackness in a White Nation: Uruguay vs Brazil, 1913”
Luis Suárez is just one goal away from equalling Uruguay’s all-time World Cup scoring record. If he isn’t already, he’ll soon be considered the greatest striker – if not footballer – in the country’s history. But most remain unaware of the player whose record Suárez is about to break, Óscar Míguez, who holds the record of 8 goals scored at two World Cups (5 in 1950 and 3 in 1954). Continue reading “Óscar Míguez”
Uruguay went into the 1916 Campeonato Sudamericano in Buenos Aires seeking not only redemption, but reaffirmation. Of course, they there to avenge the humiliating 4-1 defeat suffered against Argentina at the Revolución de Mayo tournament six years earlier. More importantly, however, the tournament was an opportunity for Uruguay to measure both their progress as a nation and to confirm their exceptional place in America. And reflecting this growing sense of Uruguayan exceptionalism was the presence of two Black players in their squad, Juan Delgado and Isabelino Gradín. Continue reading “African professionals? Uruguay’s Black stars of the 1916 Copa America”
In 1964, Mario Benedetti described football as anesthesia. It was a social drug, co-opted and exploited by governments who encouraged the people to forget their problems. If only for ninety minutes, football was an escape from social and economic uncertainties that would otherwise control one’s life. Five years later, Benedetti’s words still held true. Continue reading “Football and Revolution “
Carlos Scarone was born in barrio Peñarol, Montevideo, not long after his father arrived from Savona, Italy in 1887. The entire Scarone family, headed by Don Giuseppe, became immersed and enamoured in the local Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club, known simply as Peñarol. Continue reading “Manyas: the origin of a Peñarol nickname”
You could hardly believe it. Arturo Vidal, one of Chile’s main men, involved in a serious car accident involving his wife, his Ferrari, and within minutes, an entire nation. He had been drinking, and was travelling at an extremely high speed. For Vidal, his wife, and others to survive such an accident was unbelievable. Continue reading “Chile 2015, Uruguay 1955”
They called him ‘the Poet’. It wasn’t a tribute to his personality, nor was it a celebration of his lyrical, joyful expressions on the pitch. It couldn’t have been, he was one of those lowly goalkeepers. The nickname owed to his love of poetry, and the many verses he wrote. A number of his poems opened with ‘Oh Peñarol, yo te saludo..’ Continue reading “Roberto Chery”
