{"id":9543,"date":"2017-09-02T18:45:56","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T22:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=9543"},"modified":"2017-09-02T18:28:33","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T22:28:33","slug":"conmebol-world-cup-qualifying-auto-berths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2017\/09\/02\/conmebol-world-cup-qualifying-auto-berths\/","title":{"rendered":"CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifying: Three Automatic Berths Still Available"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifying seems like it will be defined on the last day.<\/p>\n<p>Matchday 15 proved this is one of the most difficult zones in the world as Brazil is more of a leader than ever with 36 points and already the only team who advanced to the World Cup next year.<\/p>\n<p>Uruguay and Argentina were supposed to be the main fight, but they tied 0-0 in a disappointing match in Montevideo.<\/p>\n<p>Chile, Colombia and Ecuador failed in their task to reach some points and the qualification still has three of the four automatic places remaining, as well as the intercontinental playoffs spot.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a look of the five results.<\/p>\n<h1><strong>CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifying: Three Automatic Berths Still Available<\/strong><\/h1>\n<h2>&#8212; Venezuela 0-0 Colombia &#8212;<\/h2>\n<p>Colombia edged up to 25 points in a crucial game to persist in second place, just one point ahead of Uruguay.<\/p>\n<p>Venezuela is one of the two teams eliminated and Jos\u00e9 Pekerman&#8217;s team just came out with a draw that helps a little in the race to the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Colombia will take on Brazil at Barranquilla on Tuesday September 5, and with three matches still on the calendar, they need to take advantage at the two home game they&#8217;ll have.<\/p>\n<h2>&#8212; Uruguay 0-0 Argentina &#8212;<\/h2>\n<p>Both teams desperately needed the three points to take a breath. But they ended up with a frustrating result instead.<\/p>\n<p>Uruguay is third with 24 points as Argentina remains in the intercontinental spot with 23 points.<\/p>\n<p>Uruguay visits Paraguay on Matchday 16, while Argentina will take on Venezuela.<\/p>\n<h2>&#8212; Chile 0-3 Paraguay &#8212;<\/h2>\n<p>In a poor display, Chile let escape three important points at home. They stayed at 23 points, the same as Argentina but with +2 in goal difference.<\/p>\n<p>Arturo Vidal&#8217;s own goal in the 24th minute opened up the scoring. Victor C\u00e1ceres reached the net in the 55th minute and Richard Ort\u00edz put in a late goal in second half stoppage time to keep Paraguay&#8217;s dreams to go to Russia alive with 21 points and settle in seventh place.<\/p>\n<p>Chile is in desperate need for victories in its next two games because its last match up will be against Brazil at S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n<h2>&#8212; Brazil 2-0 Ecuador &#8212;<\/h2>\n<p>The leader of CONMEBOL didn&#8217;t have any problems in putting away Ecuador and extend their dominance in South America.<\/p>\n<p>With 20 points and back in eighth position, Ecuador lost its way and its best hopes is to win its next two games at home.<\/p>\n<p>FC Barcelona&#8217;s new singing Paulinho scored in the 69th minute as Phillipe Coutinho, who has not played with Liverpool this season, put in a incredible goal in the 76th minute.<\/p>\n<p>Those two players are set to be club teammates with Coutinho also joining Barcelona.<\/p>\n<h2>&#8212; Per\u00fa 2-1 Bolivia &#8212;<\/h2>\n<p>Per\u00fa made an amazing comeback in these qualifiers. With the victory at home, Ricardo Gareca&#8217;s team is now in sixth place with 21 points, just two shy of the intercontinental spot that Argentina has right now.<\/p>\n<p>Two quick goals at the start of second half by Edison Flores (55&#8242;) and Christian Cuevas (59&#8242;) gave the three points to Per\u00fa, who takes on Ecuador at Quito in the next match.<\/p>\n<p>Gilbert \u00c1lvarez halved the Peru lead in the 72nd minute but it was not enough for a team already eliminated.<\/p>\n<p>The struggle to finish among the final three automatic berths in CONMEBOL is even more challenging with three games left in World Cup Qualifying.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"rJrkuFT1Tc55kXNH_5N5_g\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/841571364\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'rJrkuFT1Tc55kXNH_5N5_g',sig:'RYHwuwFJiIjmPRWuwsLWZ1gRKWnBZizWQbduvGQNqXg=',w:'594px',h:'460px',items:'841571364',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifying: Three automatic berths are still up for grabs after Matchday 15. It included a scoreless draw between Uruguay and Argentina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2126,"featured_media":9579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1057,1417,129,656,206],"class_list":["post-9543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-tournament","tag-2018-fifa-world-cup","tag-conmebol","tag-fifa","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-qualifying"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}