Uruguay was proclaimed youth world champion on Sunday morning for the first time in its history. He came out as champion 73 years after the absolute ‘Maracanazo’ of the 1950 World Cup against Brazil. “Uruguay celebrates its five-time championship,” said the optimists today in this small Republic of just over 3.4 million inhabitants. The Uruguayans, always with humility, count, in that five-time championship, the Olympic gold medals in Colombes (Paris) 1924 and Amsterdam 1928, plus the 1930 World Cups, the first in history, and 1950.
When that 1-0 against Italy ended on Sunday, the entire Uruguayan people took to the streets, something he repeated this Monday afternoon, when the ‘gurises’ (youth in ‘Uruguayan’) arrived in Montevideo from Argentina, the venue for the World Cup.
This new Uruguayan “miracle” has a difficult population explanation, and can only be understood from the passion that the charra has for soccer. The data is striking. This first title as Sub 20 world champion It can only be explained from the broad soccer tradition of the country, but it is difficult to understand from the population density of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. The total population of the country is 3,426,260 inhabitants, almost all of whom breathe football. Within the male population, 382,584 are between the ages of 15 and 29, the average age of professional soccer players.
Uruguay is also the country with largest number of professional players abroad in relation to its population: it has 338 soccer players abroad, but for every million inhabitants there are 112 Uruguayan soccer players who play abroad. To put this data into perspective, Brazil is the country with the most soccer players playing abroad, with 1,289, but in relation to population, it only has six players abroad per million inhabitants.
A Uruguayan fan celebrates after the title.
Half of the Uruguayan inhabitants live in Montevideo and the other half are scattered throughout the rest of the country (popularly known as ‘the interior’), in addition to the many Uruguayans who reside throughout the world. This proportion was also reflected in the champion team in Argentina on Sunday: 10 of the 21 players that made up the sky-blue squad were born in the interior and the rest from the capital.
The Uruguayan public has always been a regular follower of all the youth teams. Proof of this was the massive reception to the vice-champion team of Malaysia in that 1997 -lost final with Argentina-. Last night, and today, it was repeated: there was no one who did not go out to celebrate. 18 de Julio, the main avenue of Montevideo, it was filled with people celebrating the triumph of the ‘gurises’ until the wee hours of the morning, something that was repeated today in a caravan to receive the world champions that culminated in the Centenario Stadium.
Glory to these ‘gurises’: ‘Uruguay noma!’.
