South America Update: CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifiers and Friendlies

For the previous week, most media coverage in the world of international football has centered around the European Championships taking place in Poland and Ukraine.

While that tournament has proved thoroughly entertaining to date, there have also been other fascinating matches taking places all over the globe in both friendlies and World Cup qualifiers.

In South America, the encounters have been full of flash, quality and an abundance of goals.

Being the hosts of the global tournament in 2014, Brazil will not be participating in any of the qualifying matches, which would usually imply a lack of entertainment in the CONMEBOL region.

Nevertheless, Argentina and Uruguay have more than made up for the loss of the Brazilians by scoring four goals each in 4-0 and 4-2 demolitions of Ecuador and Peru, respectively.

Argentina followed their dazzling home performance against the Ecuadorians, in which their entire forward line of Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Gonzalo Higuain and Angel Di Maria scored, with a spectacular 4-3 friendly victory against Brazil in New Jersey.

The latter match featured a hat trick from the reigning World Player of the Year in an occasion that had been promoted as the battle of two of the game's brightest stars—Messi and Neymar.

The Uruguayan victory at home came after a disappointing draw against surprise package Venezuela, which followed up with an unfortunate 0-2 home loss to a youthful Chile contingent that waited until the 85th minuted to score through Sporting Lisbon playmaker Matias Fernandez.

The triumph against the feisty Venezuelans has temporarily placed them above Uruguay and Argentina atop the CONMEBOL qualifiers, although they have played one more match.

Bolivia, who suffered home defeat to the Chileans last week, took advantage of a drowsy Paraguay squad and drilled in the goals as they came away with a morale-boosting 3-1 victory. 

The victory was their first in the qualifiers and only helped to heap more misery on a Paraguay team that is languishing one point from bottom despite having reached the final of the 2011 Copa America.

Andean neighbors Peru suffered back-to-back defeats against Colombia and Uruguay and sit bottom of the table with only an earlier victory in the tournament keeping hope alive.

However, Colombia could not keep the winning run going and fell to a 1-0 away loss to Ecuador, who finished the round positively after their previous destruction at the hands of Argentina.

Matchday 5 and 6 Results

Uruguay 1-1 Venezuela, Bolivia 0-2 Chile, Argentina 4-0 Ecuador, Peru 0-1 Colombia, Bolivia 3-1 Paraguay, Venezuela 0-2 Chile, Uruguay 4-2 Peru, Ecuador 1-0 Colombia

International Friendly Results

Brazil 0-2 Mexico, Brazil 3-4 Argentina