By K.K.
BARELY a fortnight after the end of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the 2022 edition might seem a long way off. But the wait will feel almost interminable in South America. Not a single team from CONMEBOL, as the continent’s conference is known, made it to the semi-finals in Russia. Indeed, if South America’s teams fail to lift the trophy in Qatar, they will have endured five consecutive tournaments without a victory. Bookmakers give them only a 30% chance of ending this miserable run in 2022. By contrast, between the second world war and 2002, when Brazil last triumphed in the World Cup, CONMEBOL never went more than one tournament without winning.
What has caused this barren spell? It is tempting to look at the recent past and conclude that South American football has fallen into terminal decline. Brazil, five times a champion, has only reached the semi-finals once since 2002—and on that occasion got thumped 7-1 on home soil by Germany. Argentina has only made it to the same stage once since Diego Maradona, the greatest player of his generation, retired in 1994. Between them the other South American teams have only progressed to the semi-finals once in the last 40 years, when Uruguay squeezed past Ghana on penalties in 2010.
