When you hear the phrase “The Road to the World Cup,” it usually refers to the qualifying process that takes place every four years. Center Line Soccer managing editor Jay Hipps wanted to start at the beginning, so he brings us this report from Montevideo, Uruguay, the site of the first World Cup, played in 1930.

Montevideo, Uruguay is a city that feels frozen in time. Walking down its grand boulevard, Avenida 18 de Julio, is like walking through an architectural museum. It seems you can find examples of every popular style of the last 150 years, from grand French-inspired structures with ironwork balconies to Art Nouveau wonders. There are buildings from the 1920’s that look as though they were modeled after the luxury ocean liners of the day, blocky mid-century modern apartments that emphasize their metal superstructures, and, finally, examples of the glass-sheathed edifices that have dominated commercial development in much of the world over the last 30 years. Adding to the time-capsule quality of Montevideo’s urban core is the fact that many of these buildings appear to have seen little maintenance since they were first constructed, a fact that speaks to the enthusiasm of builders who poured all their resources into creating beautiful works of art but left little money behind for ongoing upkeep. Or, perhaps, it is just a reflection of the uncertain nature of the country’s economy, where booms and busts make residents wonder if Uruguay’s best days are behind her or are still yet to come.

“Back in the 1950’s Uruguay had first world standards and those days are gone,” Gonzalo Larrea of Montevideo’s El Pais newspaper told me. “The country was referred to as the ‘Switzerland of South America.’ Now, even though things are OK, we are far away from that.”

While the country’s economy has not been able to keep pace, the legacy of Uruguay’s golden era still exists today. No structure looms larger in the public’s consciousness than the Estadio Centenario, the stadium that hosted the 1930 World Cup final — the first final, where 93,000 watched Uruguay defeat Argentina 4-2 to be awarded the first World Cup trophy by FIFA president Jules Rimet, the same man whose name adorned the trophy itself from 1946 to 1970. It was a remarkable achievement for a small country — even now, the nation’s population is estimated at just 3.5 million, roughly half that of the San Francisco Bay Area — but Uruguay was one of the elite teams then, having captured gold medals at the 1924 Olympic games in Paris and the 1928 games in Amsterdam, as well as half of the first dozen Copa America titles.

The dominant feature of the stadium, a concrete bowl that required the excavation of almost six million cubic feet of soil from a hill near the northwest terminus of Avenida 18 de Julio, is a tower at midfield that reaches a height of 100 meters — over 325 feet — making it one of the tallest structures in South America at the time of its construction. The tower was an homage to the Uruguayan teams that captured Olympic gold in the previous decade, and its Art Deco design, a style that was soaring in popularity in the European cities in which those medals were won, was an indication of the country’s new self-image as a leading participant in the global community. Uruguay was stylish; Uruguay was coming into its own. Uruguay was a winner.

Then came the Great Depression, a trouble from beyond that had a devastating effect on Uruguay’s economy, with per capita production falling by over one-third. Rebound began as World War II created increased demand for the country’s exports and the economy was in full stride in 1950 as the world again turned its attention to football, following the cancellation of the 1942 and 1946 World Cups due to the global conflict and its aftermath. When Brazil hosted the tournament that year, it was their southern neighbors, Uruguay, who took home the trophy, bagging their second championship of the first four tournaments. Once again, an economic boom coincided with footballing success.

The 1950 World Cup final is one of the most heralded matches in world football history. Nearly 200,000 people, still a record, packed into Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana stadium to see it. Brazil took a 1-0 lead in the first half and looked certain to triumph; due to the format of that year’s tournament, they only needed a draw to prevail. But Uruguay answered with goals in the 66th and 79th minutes to hand the Brazilians the most disappointing defeat they have ever suffered on home soil. Both countries now know the match by a single name: the Maracanazo. Many look at it as the high-water mark of Uruguayan soccer, and it coincided with the another economic boom which lasted until mid-decade, when wrong-headed government policies contributed to a stagnation of both industrial and agricultural production that plunged the nation’s economy again into crisis.

• • •

Estadio Centenario is still used for Uruguay’s home matches, but the hot ticket is the local derby between club sides Peñarol and Nacional, the two powerhouses of Uruguayan football. Between them, they have won 68 championships since the onset of the nation’s professional era in 1932.

The sides’ meetings during the season are legendary, the kind of matches that even tourist guidebooks recommend seeing in order to get an unfiltered taste of the country’s culture. When the two sides meet in a playoff series to determine the season’s champion, as they did in mid-May, it can bring the city to a standstill.

The idea of playoffs will be familiar to American soccer fans, but Uruguay has their own method for determining a champion. Each season is split into two halves, the Apertura (Opening) and Clausura (Closing), where teams face each of their 15 league opponents once. If the same team wins both halves of the season, it is crowned champion. If two different teams prevail, the Apertura champion faces the Clausura champion in a do-or-die playoff match in which the team with the worse record must win in order to force a further two-game playoff. This season, Peñarol went undefeated in the Clausura, finishing with 13 wins and two draws, and could have captured the trophy with a win over their rivals, but Nacional came through with a 2-0 victory to force two more games.

"The barras bravas of each team arrived hours before kickoff, completely filling the sections behind each goal by the time I arrived 90 minutes before the opening whistle."

The first of these took place on Saturday, May 15. The barras bravas of each team arrived hours before kickoff, completely filling the sections behind each goal by the time I arrived 90 minutes before the opening whistle. Each end — the Tribuna Amsterdam for Peñarol’s supporters and the Tribuna Colombes for Nacional’s — accommodates about 12,000 people, and these masses provide the show prior to the match. The display of banners and streamers by fans bedecked in their team’s colors — yellow and black for Peñarol and red, white, and blue for Nacional — is similar to what you’d find all over the world. What makes these groups special is the way they sing, competing to be the loudest in a contest where your devotion to your team is measured in volume.  It’s not just pockets of fans here or there, either — the songs are coordinated, so everyone joins in to form a passionate choir composed of 12,000 voices. Even before the match started, if one group began to dominate the sonic space in the stadium, the other responded with their own melodies, as you can hear in the clip below¹.

On the night in question, it was Peñarol who prevailed with a 1-0 victory that they followed up three days later with a come-from-behind draw that gave the Carboneros the overall crown for 2009–2010. This song, recorded at the first leg and translated below, captures a bit of the passion of the club’s supporters.²

When I was little you took my heart
When I was little I discovered this passion
Home or away, wherever you play I will be there
And wherever you go, Carbonero
I just can’t find an explanation
But I can’t stop now
If I can’t have you, then I want to die
Let’s go Aurinegro, Let’s go win
We are never going to let you down
You are my obsession, you are my passion
Always cheering for Peñarol
I have lost my heart
From cheering for Peñarol
I don’t even care
I don’t care if you lose
I don’t care if you win
It’s a party anyway

• • •

The Great Depression has been over for decades, replaced in the First World by the Great Recession and the current credit crisis in Europe. Uruguay’s economic woes hit earlier this decade — a 50 percent drop in the value of the peso over a few weeks was just one symptom. But the mood is bright now — the country inaugurated a new president in March and tourist centers like Montevideo’s Ciudad Vieja (Old City) are a cacophony of contractors as buildings are renovated to make way for new shops, cafes, and restaurants.

“Back in 2002 the country experienced one of the worst economic crises in its history, bigger than the one is hitting Europe, Greece, Spain and the United States,” says Larrea, who covers soccer for El Pais, one of the country’s leading newspapers. “So, with that wound being so fresh, having been able to avoid the current economic crisis, and seeing how things are progressing in the country, there’s a general mood of optimism.”

As has been the case with Uruguay’s previous periods of plenty, that optimism extends to the country’s chances in the World Cup as well. Gerardo Cai, curator of the Museo del Fútbol, a relic-filled wonder ensconced within the Estadio Centenario, points to the accomplishments of two of Uruguay’s stars as a way of measuring the team’s potential.

“(Atlético Madrid’s) Diego Forlan and Diego Lugano (of Fenerbahçe) are both world-class players,” he says. Forlan may have washed out at Manchester United, but following his two-goal performance against Fulham to win the Europa League for Atlético earlier this month, it’s hard to disagree with the curator’s assessment.

Larrea feels the same way. “We are optimistic about the next World Cup, but we all know it would be very difficult for Uruguay to repeat,” he says. “There’s a good team now, good players. We feel that we can give a surprise, maybe.”

Progress will not be easy, however. Uruguay has been drawn into Group A, where they will face the hosts — never an easy task — as well as France and Mexico.

But even that optimism can be burdensome, adds Larrea. “There are some people who say that in some way, those World Cups may have worked against the progress of football in Uruguay, because we are stuck in time. We live off the memories, of how big our history was, but we may never be able to repeat them. We still feel like world champions, when the truth is that we are far from that. We feel like losers if we don’t win, even if our teams make good performances.”

Larrea says that not everyone is ready to simply forget the country’s early success, though. “1930 was and it still is something very important in the history of the country. It’s also something that still makes us proud.” As builders are making grand structures in the heart of Montevideo, it’s an open question as to whether these flush economic times will again coincide with Uruguayan footballing success. The answer will begin to be revealed in Cape Town on June 11, when they kick off against France.

Photos and audio production by Jay Hipps, centerlinesoccer.com
Thanks to Andres for translation of the Peñarol song.

References 1 and 2: 

Audios can be heard at the source: Center Line Soccer