WCQ South America - recap and standings

After a week in which each team played twice and none managed to get maximum points, the South American World Cup Qualifying Group is getting tighter and tighter with still a lot to play for and not team sure of a ticket to go to South Africa.

Here are the results from the 12nd round of fixtures:

Venezuela 2-0 Colombia
Bolivia 6-1 Argentina (how it hurts!)
Ecuador 1-1 Paraguay
Chile 0-0 Uruguay
Brazil 3-0 Perú

The standings now look like this:

Paraguay 24 points
Brazil 21 points
Chile 20 points
Argentina 19 points
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Uruguay 17 points
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Colombia 14 points
Ecuador 14 points
Venezuela 13 points
Bolivia 12 points
Perú 7 points

Argentina went down to fourth place after being placed second before the heavy defeat at Bolivia and sure missed a chance to get even closer to Paraguay and widen the gap with the teams aiming for the fifth spot (which guarantees a playoff with the fourth team from the CONCACAF region).

ON THE UP:

In my opinion, Chile and Uruguay are the biggest winners from these two rounds of matches.

Getting four points from a possible total of six, both teams have helped their causes and continue well in contention for a place in the next World Cup (after missing out of Germany).

Brazil, even when some would think they dropped points in Ecuador, escaped with an undeserved point from Quito and had no problems to beat Perú at home to claim second place.

IN THE BUBBLE:

Argentina and Colombia got two easy home wins only to fail dramatically at their next hurdle. For Argentina, the chance of rebounding is bigger and the margin of error too. Colombia can't score for toffee, are currently out of qualification spots and they next visit Buenos Aires.

Paraguay had two difficult away matches. They lost to a fairly solid Uruguayan side at Montevideo, but then they rescued a point in difficult Quito with 10-men against Ecuador to keep their well-earned first place in the standings.

Venezuela looked out of sorts in Buenos Aires but rebounded nicely with a derby win against Colombia. They will need all the luck in the world, but they're in with a realistic shot at making it to their first ever FIFA World Cup.

Bolivia were left with a sweet taste in their mouthes, but 12 total points are still some distance short from looking encouraging. They can build up on their historical win over Argentina but they need to get maximum points from their home matches as well as winning some points away from La Paz.

OUT OF LUCK:

To me Ecuador are the biggest losers of these two matches. At home for both games, they let Brazil escape with a point on Sunday and they repeated the same with Paraguay on Wednesday. Sunday at least had a positive feeling about it because it was Ecuador the one who scored in the dying minutes and it was Brazil. Wednesday was heartbreaking for Ecuador because they conceded so late. Instead of taking a deserved six points, they got only two and they are currently outside qualification places, with only themselves to blame.

Perú are hopeless. Six goals conceded in two matches (1-3 at home to Chile; 0-3 away to Brazil). Only seven points. Last in the standings. Really, there's nothing positive for them to look at at the moment.