An effervescent stadium, a match with final touches and the watchful eye of an entire continent: this is how the clash between Uruguay and Peru, two direct rivals in the South American qualifier heading to Catar-2022, will be experienced this Thursday.
The duel can define in Montevideo one of the last places in the region for the World Cup.
La Celeste, fourth with 22 points, and Albirroja, fifth with 21, star in a head-to-head race to get a direct ticket to the World Cup in November, to which the four best positioned teams qualify for South America. The fifth goes to a playoff with an Asian national team.
The 'Charrúas' can achieve their goal on Thursday if they defeat Peru and, simultaneously, the already qualified Brazil beat Chile who, sixth with 19 points, remains in the fight for now.
With that possibility on the doorstep, the Uruguayan public sold out and the legendary Centenario will be a boiler with more than 50,000 local fans and some 2,000 Peruvian supporters.
The decisive clash for the penultimate date of the qualifiers will begin at 8:30pm local (23h30 GMT) and will be refereed by Brazilian Anderson Daronco.
- A final -
Uruguay will play Peru “as if it were a final”. The phrase spoken on Monday by Diego Alonso at a press conference may sound like a whip in the football universe, but this time it defines quite accurately the feeling of fans and selection.
The coach, who replaced Oscar Tabárez in January in a sort of 'operation rescue' of the Uruguayan national team after a string of poor results, knows that the future of his newly started process is also at stake.
La Celeste has to its credit a history with wide favoritism against Peru in the Centennial. Of the 25 games she played at home against the Inca since 1930, she won 16, drew seven and was barely defeated twice (by qualifiers in 1981 and 2004), according to statistics from the Uruguayan Football Association (AUF).
But nothing is said for the ever-combative Albirroja, whose players have been confident in repeating the historic classification they achieved for Russia-2018 after 36 years of absences from the world championships.
“We have already made history in other countries where we had not won, we did so and hopefully this time is not the exception,” Peruvian defender Miguel Araújo said on Monday, before stating that both this match and the next match against Paraguay will be “finals”.
The team led by Argentinian Ricardo Gareca will once again suffer the absence due to injury of their referents Paolo Guerrero and Jefferson Farfan.
Uruguay, meanwhile, will have its historic scorers Luis Suarez and Edinson Cavani, although both are far from their best and come with a few minutes at their clubs, Atletico Madrid and Manchester United.
- Another match -
Because of its impact on World Cup qualification, almost a matter of state in a football society such as Uruguayan, the party against Peru has even acquired political edges.
The clash will take place three days before part of an emblematic law of the Uruguayan government that the opposition wants to repeal is submitted to a referendum, and some leaders believe that the result on the court may affect the election result.
While those in favor of the repeal will have to place a pink ballot in the ballot box, those who support the government will go with a light blue ballot, in an offer of colors that some consider disloyal because of the symbolism of sports.
Even former vice-president Lucia Topolansky proposed that players wear a shirt “half light blue and half pink” for this time, something that the AUF ruled out outright.
An extra football seasoning for a clash that will attract all eyes.
Probable lineups:
Uruguay: Fernando Muslera - Ronald Araújo, Diego Godin, Jose Gimenez, Mathias Olivera - Facundo Pellistri, Rodrigo Bentancur, Federico Valverde, Lucas Torreira - Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani (or Darwin Nunez). DT: Diego Alonso.
Peru: Pedro Gallese - Luis Advincula, Carlos Zambrano, Alexander Callens, Miguel Trauco - Renato Tapia - Sergio Peña, Andre Carrillo, Raziel Garcia, Santiago Ormeno, Yoshimar Yotún. DT: Ricardo Gareca.
gv/ol
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