2-time champion Uruguay is looking to bid farewell to one of their best generations in recent memory with an outstanding performance in the World Cup. The team though has not had an easy time replacing some of its veteran players, and this actually led them to have a ton of trouble during the qualifying round.
Things got so bad in the qualifiers that they had to let go of long time manager Oscar Tabarez who is without a doubt one of the best coaches in the history of the South American game. Diego Alonso though was able to breathe new life into the team, and get them into the tournament. Can they be a team that reaches important stages in the World Cup?
How Effective Can The Old Heads Be?
Edinson Cavani is getting up there in age, but he seems to be as fit as ever. He dealt with some issues at the beginning of the season, but now at Valencia he’s scored 4 goals in 7 La Liga games. Luis Suarez can be a contributor in key moments for the team, but it may be a mistake to force him to play 90 minutes. He’s strictly inside the box number 9 at this point in his career. His overall mobility has been reduced to almost 0, but he can still find the ball in the box and put it away.
Although the team has been able to find some young talent in the midfield they’ve had a lot of trouble replacing some of the old guys in the back line. Diego Godin is going to need to turn back the clock and play like his prime Atlético Madrid self. His understudy at Atlético Jose Maria Jimenez seems to have fallen off a cliff! So much so that he probably won’t start in the World Cup with Godin still being called upon to answer the bell one last time.
Goalkeeper is another position that could be in question. It’s looking like Diego Alonso has decided to finally bench long time starter Fernando Muslera in favor of Sergio Rochet. Rochet is not necessarily a young talent having more or less failed in Europe and returned to Uruguay with Nacional. He’ll be in charge of standing between the sticks for Uruguay, there’s not a lot of certainty at that spot for sure!
The Young Guys Are Really Going To Be The Backbone Of This Team
If Rodrigo Betancourt, and Federico Valverde can hold the fort down in the midfield and create chances for the likes of Cavani, and Suarez this can be a very dangerous team. They need to get a bit more help from the wings though. An option that Diego Alonso could look into is using Darwin Nuñez in that midfield on the wing. He may not be as sound defensively, but they can certainly use his bursts of speed to generate offense. Particularly with the lack of mobility that some of their other options up front have at this point.
Our Prediction
There’s too much talent on this squad for us to see them losing against Korea or Senegal. In fact, they are going to play Portugal very close. It wouldn’t necessarily be a surprise to see them win the group and avoid Brazil in the round of 16. Our concern is that some of the older players may not be able to handle playing games with such a short turnaround time. Simply put though, in top physical form this is a team that could give any of the 31 others that made it to the tournament a run for their money. Don’t sleep on Uruguay!
