My fellow chileans messed up on the 2-2 draw with Venezuela on saturday, but we are still looking good towards the end of the qualifiers with only 3 games left, and currently second on the standings tied with Paraguay.
Next we face Brazil @ Bahía, Brazil on wednesday. Good news is that Brazil is now qualified to the WC and will not have, due to suspensions, neither Kaká (to me their best player as of right now), Robihno or Luis Fabiano (the leading scorer for the south american WCQ). The standings look like this, with the first 4 teams going directly to the WC, and the fifth going to a deciding match against a team from the Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football):
Pos Team Pts (Goals Differential)
1. Brazil 30 (+21)
2. Chile 27 (+9)
3. Paraguay 27 (+8)
4. Argentina 22 (+2)
5. Colombia 20 (-2)
6. Ecuador 20 (-4)
7. Uruguay 18 (+6)
8. Venezuela 18 (-7)
9. Bolivia 12 (-12)
10. Perú 10 (-21)
The last time we (Chile) participated on a WC was on France 98', so people are vey exited about our current situation. It's been unprecedented so far with a lot of historic performances during this WCQ, such as beating Argentina last year for the first time ever on an official international game, or beating Perú @ Perú for the first time in (dont recall precisely) something like the last 20 years. Same with Paraguay @ Paraguay. We are also scoring a lot of goals, which had been a problem ever since Salas and Zamorano retired from the National Team.
I don't expect us to win @ Brazil but hey anything is possible. Then we play @ Colombia and then vs Ecuador. If we get only 2 points from the last 3 games, we are in. It all depends on how Colombia and Ecuador do during those 3 games.
Argentina doesn't look good right now, and IMO, won't do a lot better in the future as long as Maradona keeps coaching the team. With that said, they are still at 4th place on the standings and although they play @ Paraguay next game, then they play vs Perú who are last on the standings and out of the WC. It will be intresting though, their last game is against Uruguay whom will probably be out of contention by that time. There have been deciding games between the two countries in the past, and people have wondered about those games being previosly arranged on their outcome, to favor each other, if you know what I mean.