Faces of Football: Uruguay - a letter to the national team

Dear Uruguayan national team,

My name is Gonzalo and I am a lifelong fan of the national team. As I was born in Montevideo in the early 90s so, to be honest, growing up as a Uruguay fan and watching the team fail to even qualify for the 1998 World Cup was pretty difficult. 

Since then however, the team has been fantastic. Truly fantastic. As you guys have been able to make our beloved national team competitive on the world stage once again.

We’re going to this World Cup with a very interesting combination of young upcoming players - Federico Valverde, Darwin Nunez, Rodrigo Bentancur) and experienced pros (Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani, Fernando Muslera). Both groups will bring different things, all of which I feel will be positive for the team. 

I’m sure that you are all well aware of how important this tournament is for the Uruguayan people - we’ll all be arranging our calendars around the tournament and (hopefully) getting a national holiday if you guys get to the final (hopefully). We’ll all be making ‘asado’ and cheering you guys on from back home while you guys play in Qatar.

We understand that the group stages are going to be very difficult at this year’s World Cup. We’ve been drawn against Portugal, South Korea and Ghana, three teams that all have world class players who we’ll have to be wary of. If we successfully navigate the group we could then be facing off against Brazil, which will be even more difficult. 

This is why we need to take the tournament one game at a time, and trust our players and their ability. 

There is always hope in Uruguay that we can finally become world champions once again. I don’t know how I would even react to it happening, all I know is that I’ve made a few promises to change my appearance a bit this year if we do win it. Those changes will most certainly be worth it. 

I don't wish you luck, I wish you success. I’m confident you guys can go far this year. We fully believe in your capacity to do so.

To close, nothing better than our traditional: “Uruguay noma’!”