Why, among all the South American teams, have you heard so little talk about Uruguay this summer? I’ll tell you why: Because they’re civilized. Uruguay is the first democracy of Latin America, the first country where women voted. Whenever they have a national conflict, they solve it by referendum. Even the flyers announcing illegal prostitution clubs have a polite note below: “Please do not throw this paper in the street. Use a trash can.”
But the problem with this attitude is that Uruguay, as a nation, lacks drama. And without drama there can be no euphoria. This organized, clean, and middle-class society encounters life with an extraordinarily peaceful spirit. If you’re a foreigner needing to work in Uruguay these days, they will calmly tell you not to call or visit any public institution during the soccer matches. And even though they had one day of national strike, neither the strike nor the World Cup created the sort of mass street demonstrations it would anywhere else in Latin America or even Spain. It’s all just part of life here, taken for granted like coffee or toilets.
Maybe this mellow-like syndrome is the consequence of being forced to live between Brazil and Argentina, the two giant, hysterical monsters of South America. Or maybe it’s the result of not having reached the second stage of any World Cup in twenty years. Or a little of both—having to live between Brazil and Argentina during the past twenty years, they’ve failed to advance.
You can feel the spirit of Uruguay in its star, Diego Forlan. Think about it: Messi plays for Barcelona; Kaka plays for Real Madrid. Forlan, on the other hand, plays for Atletico Madrid, the most important loser team in the world’s best soccer league. But with Forlan, even Atletico won a cup last spring, and an international one at that.
That is the Uruguayan style, that is how they beat Brazil in the heroic final match of the 1950 World Cup, and in the glorious Americas Cup during the 1990s. Everybody knows Uruguay is only so-so, but they fight, they run 20 km in each match, if necessary. They sweat like boxers and never give up. And sometimes it works.
So, during this last month, I’ve watched as Uruguayans in the streets of Montevideo have tried not to show too much emotion. They’re afraid of disappointment. When they needed just a tie against Mexico to qualify for the next round, they said: “That is good. We are specialists in ties.”
But deep down, you can sense that they want to go crazy now. With each match that they win, Uruguayans in bars and streets are acting more like believers. The indifference of the first days is being replaced by a trembling of the legs, a little sweating over the eyebrows. Hearts are beating faster. Sometimes you can even hear a shout ring out. If Uruguay gets into the finals, it will be their best performance since 1950. But, still, they’re trying not to show off.
Santiago Roncagliolo, the author of Red April (Pantheon), is a Peruvian novelist who has spent the past month in Montevideo, Uruguay.
