Uruguay national football team

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Uruguay

Nickname(s)

Charrúas
La Celeste Olímpica (The Olympic Sky Blue)
La Celeste (The Sky Blue)

Association

Asociación Uruguaya
de Fútbol

Confederation

CONMEBOL (South America)

Head coach

Oscar Tabarez, 2006-

Captain

Diego Lugano

Most caps

Rodolfo Rodriguez (78)

Top scorer

Héctor Scarone (31)

Home stadium

Estadio Centenario

FIFA code

URU

FIFA ranking

Highest FIFA ranking

14 (May 1994)

Lowest FIFA ranking

76 (December 1998)

Elo ranking

Highest Elo ranking

1 (various dates 1920-31)

Lowest Elo ranking

46 (March 1980)





First kit





Second kit

First international

Uruguay 2 - 3 Argentina

(Montevideo, Uruguay; 16 May 1901)

Biggest win

Uruguay 9 - 0 Bolivia

(Lima, Peru; 9 November 1927)

Biggest defeat

Uruguay 0 - 6 Argentina

(Montevideo, Uruguay; 20 July 1902)

World Cup

Appearances

10 (First in 1930)

Best result

Winners, 1930 and 1950

Copa América

Appearances

39 (First in 1916)

Best result

Winners, 1916, 1917, 1920,
1923, 1924, 1926, 1935,
1942, 1956, 1959, 1967,
1983, 1987, 1995

Confederations Cup

Appearances

1 (First in 1997)

Best result

4th, 1997

Men’s Football
Olympic medal record
Gold	1924 Paris	Team
Gold	1928 Amsterdam	Team

The Uruguay national football team is controlled by the Asociación Uruguaya de Fútbol.

Uruguay is one of the most successful national football teams in the world. They have won two FIFA World Cups, including the first ever World Cup in 1930 as hosts, beating Argentina 4-2 in the final. They won their second title in 1950, upsetting hosts Brazil 2-1 in the final match. They also won the Gold Medal in football at the Summer Olympics twice, in 1924 and 1928, before the creation of the World Cup. They have also won the Copa América fourteen times, tied most with Argentina. They also won the 1980 Mundialito, a tournament among former World Cup champions Uruguay hosted in 1980 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first World Cup.

1 History
2 Stadium
3 Kit
- 3.1 World Cup Record
4 Copa América record
5 Current players
- 5.1 Recent call-up
6 Famous players
7 Trivia
8 Footnotes
9 External links
10 Titles

Most early international matches played by Uruguay had Argentina as the opposition. Prior to 1916, Uruguay played more than 30 matches, of which all but one were against Argentina. The inaugural Copa America provided Uruguay with more varied opposition. Victories over Chile and Brazil along with a draw against Argentina meant Uruguay won the tournament. The following year Uruguay hosted the competition, and retained the title by winning every match. The 1919 Copa America saw Uruguay's first defeat in the tournament, a 1-0 defeat in a playoff with Brazil which went to two periods of extra time, the longest Copa America match in history.

In 1924 the Uruguay team travelled to Paris to become the first South American team to compete in the Olympic Games. In contrast to the physical style of the European teams of the era, Uruguay played a style based around short passes,^[1] and won every game, defeating Switzerland 3-0 in the gold medal match. In the 1928 Olympics Uruguay went to Amsterdam to defend their title, again winning the gold medal after beating fellow South Americans Argentina 2-1 in the final.

Following the double Olympic triumph, Uruguay was chosen as the host nation for the first World Cup, held in 1930, the centenary of Uruguay's independence. During the World Cup, Uruguay won all its matches, and reverted a 1-2 half time scoreline to a 4-2 victory against Argentina at the Estadio Centenario. Due to the refusal of some European teams to participate in the first World Cup, the Uruguayan Football Association urged other countries to reciprocate by boycotting the 1934 World Cup played in Italy. For the 1938 World Cup, France was chosen as host, contrary to a previous agreement to alternate the Championships between South America and Europe, so Uruguay again refused to participate.

After the World War II, in its second participation, Uruguay won again the World Cup, beating hosts Brazil in a surprise result at the Maracanã Stadium, a match known as the Maracanazo.

Since 1950, the national team has had mixed performances in the World Cup, achieving fourth place in 1954 and 1970, but failing to qualify on several occasions. A new generation headed by Francescoli emerged in the mid-1980s, which qualified to the 1986 and 1990 tournaments, reaching second round. At the 2000s, the less successful generation of Recoba, Forlán and Montero among others qualified for the 2002 World Cup, but were unable to leave the groupe stage.

Nevertheless, in the same time period from the 1950s, Uruguay won the Copa America six times, most recently in 1995, when Uruguay also hosted the tournament. Each of the seven occasions when the Copa America has been hosted in Uruguay has resulted in the Uruguayan team winning the tournament.

Since 1930, Uruguay have played their home games at the Estadio Centenario in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo. The stadium was built as a celebration of Uruguay centenary of independence, and had a capacity of 100,000 when first opened. The stadium hosted several matches in the 1930 World Cup, including the final, which was watched by a crowd of 93,000.^[2] Crowds for Uruguay's home matches vary greatly depending on the importance of the match and the quality of the opposition. World Cup qualifying matches often attract crowds of between 60,000 and 70,000, but friendlies sometimes have attendances significantly below 20,000.

Current Uruguay kits were adopted in 1910 as an homage to the now defunct River Plate F.C. (the old Uruguayan River club, although the current CA River Plate use a similar red and white striped kit at home and often a light blue away jersey too).

The first international match ever for an Uruguayan team took place in Montevideo in 1889 against "Buenos Aires Team". The "Montevideo Team" was the still active Montevideo Cricket Club (now only at rugby). The first official international was played again in Montevideo in 1901. In that occasion the Uruguay national team used Albion F.C kit: Albion, in fact, had won the first game outside Uruguay, over Argentinean club Retiro in 1896 at Buenos Aires. After this game, between 1901-1910, several games between Uruguay and Argentina had Uruguay wearing striped blue and white and Argentina a plain turquoise jersey, the direct opposite to the kits from 1910 to the present day. The red kit was used in all the Copa América of Santa Beatriz in Peru in 1935 where Uruguay won the tourney.After that was never used again until 1991 when it was finally adopted as away jersey.

Four stars appear above the team logo on the jersey. Two represent Uruguay's 1930 and 1950 World Cup victories whereas the other two indicate the gold medal win at the 1924 and 1928 Olympic Games, considered at that time the most important national teams world-wide football competition.





1889 (Montevideo C.C kit)





1901 (Albion F.C kit)





1901 - 1910





1901 - 1910





1901 - 1910





1901 - 1910





1901 - 1910





1910 - 2007





1935





1991-1996

Year	Round	Position	GP	W	D*	L	GS	GA
1930	Champions	1	4	4	0	0	15	3
1934	Withdrew	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1938	Withdrew	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1950	Champions^[3]	1	4	3	1	0	15	5
1954	Semi-Finals	4	5	3	0	2	16	9
1958	Did Not Qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1962	Round 1	13	3	1	0	2	4	6
1966	Quater-finals	7	4	1	2	1	2	5
1970	Semi-Finals	4	6	2	1	3	4	5
1974	Round 1	13	3	0	1	2	1	6
1978	Did Not Qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1982	Did Not Qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1986	Round 2	16	4	0	2	2	2	8
1990	Round 2	16	4	1	2	1	2	5
1994	Did Not Qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
1998	Did Not Qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2002	Round 1	26	3	0	2	1	4	5
2006	Did Not Qualify	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Total	10/18	2 Titles	40	16	10	14	65	57

*Denotes draws include knockout matches decided on penalty kicks.

**Gold background color indicates that the tournament was won. Red border color indicates tournament was held on home soil.

1916 - Winners
1917 - Winners
1919 - Runners-up
1920 - Winners
1921 - Third place
1922 - Third place
1923 - Winners
1924 - Winners
1925 - Withdrew
1926 - Winners
1927 - Runners-up
1929 - Third place
1935 - Winners
1937 - Third place
1939 - Runners-up

1941 - Runners-up
1942 - Winners
1945 - Fourth place
1946 - Fourth place
1947 - Third place
1949 - Sixth place
1953 - Third place
1955 - Fourth place
1956 - Winners
1957 - Third place
1959 - Sixth place
1959 - Winners
1963 - Withdrew
1967 - Winners

1975 - Semifinals
1979 - Round 1
1983 - Winners
1987 - Winners
1989 - Runners-up
1991 - Round 1
1993 - Quarterfinals
1995 - Winners
1997 - Round 1
1999 - Runners-up
2001 - Fourth place
2004 - Third place
2007 - Fourth place

Below is the roster up to World Cup 2010 Qualifier vs. Bolivia.

No.	Pos.	Player	DoB/Age	Caps	Goals	Club
1	GK	Fabián Carini	December 26, 1979 (1979-12-26) (age 27)	46	0	Real Murcia
2	DF	Diego Lugano(c)	November 2, 1980 (1980-11-02) (age 27)	19	0	Fenerbahçe
3	DF	Diego Godín	April 2, 1983 (1983-04-02) (age 24)	12	2	Villarreal
4	DF	Jorge Fucile	December 19, 1984 (1984-12-19) (age 22)	5	0	Porto
5	MF	Pablo García	May 11, 1977 (1977-05-11) (age 30)	68	5	Real Murcia
6	DF	Darío Rodríguez	September 17, 1974 (1974-09-17) (age 33)	50	4	Schalke 04
7	MF	Cristian Rodríguez	September 30, 1985 (1985-09-30) (age 22)	13	2	Benfica
8	MF	Walter Gargano	July 27, 1984 (1984-07-27) (age 23)	8		S.S.C. Napoli
9	FW	Luis Suárez	January 24, 1987 (1987-01-24) (age 20)	2	1	Ajax
10	FW	Diego Forlán	May 19, 1979 (1979-05-19) (age 28)	37	14	Atlético Madrid
11	FW	Fabián Estoyanoff	September 27, 1982 (1982-09-27) (age 25)			Real Valladolid
12	GK	Juan Castillo	April 17, 1978 (1978-04-17) (age 29)			Peñarol
13	FW	Sebastián Abreu	October 17, 1976 (1976-10-17) (age 31)	36	22	UANL Tigres
14	DF	Carlos Diogo	July 18, 1983 (1983-07-18) (age 24)	37	1	Zaragoza
15	MF	Diego Pérez	May 18, 1980 (1980-05-18) (age 27)			Monaco
16	MF	Maximiliano Pereira	June 8, 1984 (1984-06-08) (age 23)	31		Benfica
17	DF	Carlos Adrián Valdez	May 2, 1983 (1983-05-02) (age 24)	3?		Reggina
18	MF	Fabián Canobbio	March 8, 1980 (1980-03-08) (age 27)	8?		Celta Vigo
19	DF	Andrés Scotti	December 14, 1975 (1975-12-14) (age 31)	3?		Argentinos Juniors
20	MF	Ignacio González	May 14, 1982 (1982-05-14) (age 25)	2?		Danubio
22	FW	Vicente Sánchez	December 7, 1979 (1979-12-07) (age 28)	2	1	Toluca

Goalkeepers

No.	Pos.	Player	DoB/Age	Club
23	GK	Sebastián Viera	July 3, 1983 (1983-07-03) (age 24)	Villarreal (friendly v. Australia, 02/06, 07)
24	GK	Fernando Muslera	June 16, 1986 (1986-06-16) (age 21)	S.S. Lazio (friendly v. Australia, 02/06, 07)
12	GK	Esteban Conde		Danubio F.C. (friendly v. South Africa, 12/09, 07)

Defenders

Pos.	Player	DoB/Age	Club
DF	Gastón Filgueira	January 8, 1986 (1986-01-08) (age 21)	Arsenal de Sarandí (friendly v. Australia, 02/06, 07)
DF	Mauricio Victorino	October 11, 1982 (1982-10-11) (age 25)	Veracruz (friendly v. South Korea, 24/3/07)
DF	Pablo Lima	March 26, 1981 (1981-03-26) (age 26)	Danubio (friendly v. South Korea, 24/3/07)
DF	Omar Pouso	February 28, 1980 (1980-02-28) (age 27)	{{{club}}} (friendly v. Colombia, 6/2/07)
DF	Gonzalo Lemes		Central Español (friendly v. Venezuela, 18/10/06)
DF	Ignacio Ithurralde		CF Monterrey (friendly v. Venezuela, 18/10/06)
DF	Martín Rodríguez		River Plate (friendly v. Venezuela, 18/10/06)
DF	Damian Malrechauffe	October 19, 1984 (1984-10-19) (age 23)	Danubio (friendly v. Venezuela, 27/9/06)
DF	Gerardo Alcoba		Wanderers (friendly v. Venezuela, 27/9/06)
DF	Sebastián Díaz		Central Español (friendly v. Venezuela, 27/9/06)

Midfielders

Pos.	Player	DoB/Age	Club
MF	Nicolás Olivera		CF Atlas (friendly v. Australia, 02/06, 07)
MF	Guillermo Giacomazzi	November 21, 1977 (1977-11-21) (age 30)	Palermo (friendly v. Australia, 02/06, 07)
MF	Egidio Arévalo	January 1, 1982 (1982-01-01) (age 25)	CF Monterrey (friendly v. Colombia, 6/2/07)
MF	Álvaro González		Boca Juniors (friendly v. Colombia, 6/2/07)
MF	Carlos Grossmüller	May 4, 1983 (1983-05-04) (age 24)	Schalke 04 (friendly v. South Africa, 12/9/07)
MF	Gustavo Varela	May 14, 1978 (1978-05-14) (age 29)	Schalke 04 (friendly v. Colombia, 6/2/07)
MF	Mario Regueiro	September 9, 1978 (1978-09-09) (age 29)	Valencia (friendly v. Georgia, 15/11/06)
MF	Jorge García		Danubio (friendly v. Venezuela, 18/10/06)
MF	Julio Mozzo		Peñarol (friendly v. Venezuela, 18/10/06)

Strikers

Pos.	Player	DoB/Age	Caps	Goals	Club
FW	Álvaro Recoba	March 17, 1976 (1976-03-17) (age 31)	58	12	Torino F.C. (friendly v. Australia, 02/06, 07)
FW	Nicolás Vigneri	July 6, 1983 (1983-07-06) (age 24)			Peñarol (friendly v. South Korea, 24/3/07)
FW	Sergio Blanco	November 25, 1981 (1981-11-25) (age 26)			Shanghai Shenhua (friendly v. Venezuela, 18/10/06)
FW	Diego Vera				Bella Vista (friendly v. Venezuela, 18/10/06)
FW	Mauro Vila				Defensor (friendly v. Venezuela, 18/10/06)
FW	Juan Manuel Salgueiro				Danubio (friendly v. Venezuela, 27/9/06)
FW	Carlos Bueno	May 10, 1980 (1980-05-10) (age 27)	17	9	Boca Juniors (friendly v. South Korea, 24/3/07)
FW	Alvaro Navarro				Defensor (friendly v. Venezuela, 27/9/06)

Uruguay and Argentina hold the record for the most international matches played between two countries.^{[citations needed]} The two teams have faced each other 161 times since 1901. The first match against Argentina was the first official international match to be played outside Britain.^[4]

^ Football's debt to Uruguay. BBC Sport. Retrieved on 15 October, 2006.
^ FIFA World Cup Origin, FIFA Media Release. Retrieved on October 16, 2006.
^ There was no official World Cup final match in 1950. The tournament winner was decided by a final round-robin group contested by four teams (Uruguay, Brazil, Sweden, and Spain). However, Uruguay's 2-1 victory over Brazil (a match known as Maracanazo) was the decisive match (and also coincidentally one of the last two matches of the tournament) which put them ahead on points and ensured that they finished top of the group as world champions. Therefore, this match is often considered the "final" of the 1950 World Cup [1]PDF (150 KiB). Likewise, Sweden's 3-1 victory over Spain (played at the same time as Uruguay vs Brazil) ensured that they finished third.
^ Although Canada and the United States played two internationals in 1885 and 1889, neither match is considered official; Canada did not play an official international until 1904 and the USA did not play one until 1916.

Preceded by Inaugural Champions	World Champions 1930 (First title)	Succeeded by 1934 Italy
Preceded by 1938 Italy	World Champions 1950 (Second title)	Succeeded by 1954 West Germany
Preceded by Inaugural Champions	South American Champions 1916 (First title) 1917 (Second title)	Succeeded by 1919 Brazil
Preceded by 1919 Brazil	South American Champions 1920 (Third title)	Succeeded by 1921 Argentina
Preceded by 1922 Brazil	South American Champions 1923 (Fourth title) 1924 (Fifth title)	Succeeded by 1925 Argentina
Preceded by 1925 Argentina	South American Champions 1926 (Sixth title)	Succeeded by 1927 Argentina
Preceded by 1929 Argentina	South American Champions 1935 (Seventh title)	Succeeded by 1937 Argentina
Preceded by 1941 Argentina	South American Champions 1942 (Eighth title)	Succeeded by 1945 Argentina
Preceded by 1955 Argentina	South American Champions 1956 (Ninth title)	Succeeded by 1957 Argentina
Preceded by 1959 Argentina	South American Champions 1959 (Tenth title)	Succeeded by 1963 Bolivia
Preceded by 1963 Bolivia	South American Champions 1967 (Eleventh title)	Succeeded by 1975 Peru
Preceded by 1979 Paraguay	South American Champions 1983 (Twelfth title) 1987 (Thirteenth title)	Succeeded by 1989 Brazil
Preceded by 1993 Argentina	South American Champions 1995 (Fourteenth title)	Succeeded by 1997 Brazil
Preceded by Inaugural Champions	Copa D'Oro Mundialito 1980 (First title)	Succeeded by One Time Only Championship