Andy Barr's Blog

So my mom sometimes gets kind of upset when I talk smack about Perú (her country) and I think is not so happy that I can now speak Portuguese better than Spanish, but, if you look at the standings right now for the South American World Cup Qualifiers (Eliminatorias-just 1 easy word in Spanish), THAT TALK IS TOTALLY JUSTIFIED. I mean, seriously, how in the world can Perú be at the bottom of the list?! They have a population of 30 million people and resources to do a whole lot better. Look at Paraguay. How is a largely agrarian country with 6 million people able to be higher on the ranks than Argentina and Colombia?? For goodness sakes, the largest city, Asunción, is smaller than Seattle. Massive props to them for being able to do what they have done. Don’t get me wrong, I love Paraguay and hope to return soon (I just went to Ciudad del Este for a few hours) but it just is incredible that they can be doing so well, (and Perú be doing so poorly). Thank goodness though, they beat Uruguay (1-0). And of course the Colombians had to rub it in by telling the news that they paid Perú 120,000 USD for the victory (http://depor.pe/noticia/339182/colombia-otorgaria-120-mil-dolares-peru-su-victoria-sobre-uruguay). I actually think that it is plausible, though you would hope that the desire to be on top of Bolivia in the rankings would be incentive enough (though very difficult with the serious goal differential).
With the Peruvian team in Venezuela now, it looks like they are getting quite the treatment. hahaha they are in a place where the temperature is hovering around 95-100 degrees and the hotel’s air conditioning and electricity is suddenly not working… You can imagine how happy the team is now (or read about it here). Do I think they are talking now to make it a little more acceptable when they lose yet again? kind of, but then again, you got to sympathize with the guys for being in that heat all day and having a game to play at night.