Brazil 2 - Uruguay 1; Paraguay and Ecuador win big

Ecuador had suffered through a stretch of three losses to begin its qualifying campaign. Perú's Vílchez was removed after ten minutes due to an injury. That, coupled with Ecuador's return to home in Quito inspired the Ecuadorians to turn around its fortunes. The Ecuadorians outshot their opponents twelve to one on route to taking a 3-0 halftime lead and a 5-0 late in the second half. Perú did manage to lead the yellow card category with four and pulled back a consolation goal to make the score final 5-1.

Brazil, despite being outshot at home eleven to four by visiting Uruguay and despite falling behind by a goal early, Brazil were able to pull even by the half. In fact, Brazil pulled out a 2-1 win. Uruguay drew four yellow cards. The difference was Dunga's decision to start Fabiano in place of Vágner Love. Dunga spoke about his choice. "He's different from Vágner, he's stronger and leads the line very well. He played a good game. Football is about the moment and he came in and took his chance." Uruguayan defender Lugano also spoke after the game. "We played better over the 90 minutes but we lacked experience to kill off the game. It's very difficult with all the forwards that Brazil have."

Paraguay gained an important three points on the road by beating Chile 3-0 in Santiago. Paraguay jumped to the top of the South American qualifying table with the victory. They managed to do this despite drawing (you guessed it) four yellow cards.

CONMEBOL qualifying resumes in June 2008. Current ELO ratings are given before the name of the country. The current point totals are in bold.

14 Paraguay 10
3 Argentina 9
1 Brazil 8
15 Colombia 8
44 Venezuela 6
19 Uruguay 4
38 Chile 4
45 Ecuador 3
53 Perú 2
73 Bolivia 1

If the World Cup qualifiers were to end today, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia would be celebrating and Venezuela would be sweating out a playoff with a CONCACAF team.

Goals scored:
Ecuador: Ayovi 10, 48; Kaviedes 24; E. Méndez 44, 62

Perú: A. Mendoza 86

Brazil: Fabiano 44, 65

Uruguay: Abreu 8

Paraguay: Cabañas 23; da Silva 45+1, 56