Memories of Montevideo

I’m busy fixing up a trip to Montevideo to cover the second leg of the World Cup playoff between Uruguay and Costa Rica.

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Booking the flights, organising the hotel, imagining the occasion – inevitably it sets the mind spinning back to this stage in the two previous qualification campaigns.

November 2001 and November 2005 - both times on gorgeous spring afternoons in the Centenario stadium to see if Uruguay were going to snatch that last World Cup place. Both times it was Australia who was barring the door.

These two events appear to loom so large in Australian football consciousness that I hope it does not come across as self indulgence if I spend this column sifting through some of the memories from Montevideo.

Perhaps the best and strongest image comes from working with the SBS team four years ago.

Just a small group had come over from Australia. Les Murray as the figurehead, Simon Hill match commentator, and the production team of Noel and Jenni.

The most unforgettable thing was seeing the experience in the Centenario through Jenni’s eyes. The occasion bowled her over. She had never seen its like before.

I don’t think there was anything in domestic Australian sports, football or otherwise, that prepared her for the seething intensity of the Centenario that day.

While Simon Hill, an old Manchester City fan, was nodding his head in appreciation and enjoying what he termed a proper football atmosphere, Jenni was taking everything in with wide eyed astonishment.

Seeing it from her perspective helped bring home the importance of what was gong on. At stake was a place in the World Cup, perhaps the event with the biggest power of representation on the planet.

That’s why Uruguay had celebrated with such abandon on the pitch in Montevideo four years earlier. They were hosting the second leg, and overturned a 1-0 deficit with a 3-0 win in front of their own supporters.

After the final whistle I recall star man Alvaro Recoba sitting on the crossbar and leading the singing. It was a huge occasion – Australia striving to establish the sport while Uruguay, first kings of the global game, desperate to avoid missing out on a third consecutive World Cup.

This was before I had any connection with SBS, though I vaguely remember doing some phone interviews with some of the Australian media. I do recall, though, that some Aussie journalists were talking before the game about how they were going to cover the players’ victory party – the gods of football seldom approve of such plans.

To be honest, however, I never really detected much faith in the Australian camp. The team threw away the first half, and were very lucky to go in at the break just a goal down, scores level on aggregate. They had looked over-passive.

Coach Frank Farina had talked of taking the heat out of the game, making the crowd quiet and then hoping they would turn on their own players. It was never likely to happen.

The second half, though, was a different story – a far more scintillating 45 minutes of football than I had expected from such a tense occasion.

Australia found some rhythm, and were enjoying their best spell of the game when Richard Morales scored Uruguay’s second with twenty minutes to go.

It was cruel, but the Socceroos only needed one to go through on the away goals rule and Paul Agostino had a chance well saved by Fabian Carini in the Uruguayan goal.

The game, then, was still well and truly alive. But I was sitting up in the press box surrounded by the Australian media contingent, and what struck me was how quiet they had all gone.

In a glorious blue sky, a little cloud of despondency was hanging over them. They didn’t seem to believe in their team – a lack of faith confirmed in injury time when Morales scored the clincher.

Four years later, of course, it was all different. The order of the games was changed with Uruguay hosting the first leg, and I’m sure no one has forgotten the outcome.

If there was little to choose between the two sides in 2001, there was nothing between them in 2005 and so it all went down to penalties.

I remember at the time wondering how the two legs could have been scored if it was a boxing match. It’s very difficult to separate them.

Uruguay dominated the second half in Montevideo, Australia were well on top in the second half in Sydney.

If anything, and I don’t imagine this will make me too popular with some readers, I think that Uruguay might just have shaded it.

Going into extra time in the second leg at Stadium Australia they had looked absolutely out on their feet. I thought the Aussies would go for the kill. In the event, though, Uruguay dug deep, found some hidden reserves and were the better of two tired sides in that last half hour.

Taking the final round might sway the judges in boxing, but it cuts no ice in football, and destiny was decided in the penalty shoot out.

Back in Montevideo for the first leg, I can remember getting to the stadium early, watching the crowd build up and the intensity level rise.

We filmed a chat with Les Murray on the pitch before the game. It was already hard to hear yourself think above the hubbub but I can remember trying to transmit a sensation of our good fortune at being in such a historic place on the afternoon when another important chapter was about to be written.

Guus Hiddink wandered around on the pitch conveying a sensation of steely calm – for a true football man, a top player or coach, these are the moments when he feels most alive.

While Simon Hill was in one cabin doing the commentary, Les and myself were in another one, watching in appreciation as compact and organised Australia got off to a thoroughly assured start.

Towards the end of the half, we had to rush down the stairs, push our way through the crowd and get back onto the pitch, where would be having another chat for the cameras during the break.

Before we got there, while we were still trying to push a path through, an explosion of noise told us that a goal had been scored, and that Uruguay had scored it. So we quickly turned round and pushed back the way we had come, in order to reach the snack bar area at the back where televisions were showing the game so we could catch the replay.

New, vital information digested, we then headed back to the pitch and breathlessly tried to make sense of what we had just seen for the Australian viewing public.

Soon after Les and myself had been running around like The Keystone Kops in a chase scene, the Australia players were like sailors frantically having to plug the gap in a boat that could have gone down.

Uruguay threw everything at them in the second half and I’m sure it was one of the longest 45 minutes of football in the life of Les Murray. But 1-0 it ended, leaving everyone happy enough.

Australia, with far superior travel arrangements, were confident of overturning the deficit. Uruguay had extended their unbeaten run in the qualification campaign to 10 games – one more and they were safe and dry.

The Uruguayans were amused by the contingent of Australian fans, with their plastic kangeroos and their beery exuberance. With everything still to play for there was no reason for anyone – Uruguayan, Australian or a neutral like myself – to drift away from the Centenario stadium in a depressed frame of mind.

All in all, an excellent afternoon’s football and a nice memory to reflect upon every time I gaze at the press credential for the match.

This time Uruguay are playing host to the second leg. So come the final whistle there will be joy for one side, pain for the other.

It is an evening game – 9pm kick off local time – so the atmosphere will be very different in the darkness.

And this time, to my regret, it’s not Australia. I loved that interaction with the Aussie football public in the build up to that game four years ago. Instead it is Costa Rica who come to Montevideo.

Even so, there should be plenty to enjoy. I expect the game still to be in the balance after the first leg.

Although they recorded a sensational victory in Ecuador last month, Uruguay’s away record is not great and now they will have to cope with a synthetic surface in the Ricardo Saprissa stadium in San Jose.

Uruguay, then, may well have to go all out for a win in the Centenario stadium on November 18 and I’m hoping to pick up another bagful of Montevideo memories.

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