Tuesday evening features the clash between Venezuela and Uruguay in the South American section of the World Cup qualifiers and a precious three points at stake for both nations as they seek to further enhance their claims for a place in next year’s World Cup finals in Qatar.
Starting with Venezuela, and the hosts have made a poor start to their campaign as they’ve won one but lost four of their opening five matches in the group with their single success being a 2-1 home win against Chile.
Imágenes del encuentro en La Paz. 📸Bolivia 🇧🇴 3-1 🇻🇪 Venezuela#VamosVinotinto | #FVF | #FIFA | #VinotintoxTLT | #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/fpy19kLHQa— FVF (@FVF_Oficial) June 3, 2021
Imágenes del encuentro en La Paz. 📸Bolivia 🇧🇴 3-1 🇻🇪 Venezuela#VamosVinotinto | #FVF | #FIFA | #VinotintoxTLT | #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/fpy19kLHQa
However, having also suffered defeats against Colombia, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia, the latter being a slightly surprising heavy defeat in La Paz, Venezuela find themselves sitting second from bottom in the group and four points behind 5th placed Uruguay.
Victories in World Cup qualifiers have been a little thin on the ground for Venezuela as the hosts have managed to pick up just two wins from their last 12 matches overall.
While results on home turf at their Estadio Olímpico de la UCV have also seen just two wins out of their previous 12 qualifiers, five of these being draws.
Uruguay were held to a 0-0 draw at home by Paraguay a few days ago meaning the visitors have now won just one of their last four matches in this South American qualifying group but they still occupy 5th place.
Uruguay have posted mixed results to date in these World Cup qualifiers as the visitors have picked up wins against Chile and Colombia but they’ve also fallen to losses against Ecuador and Brazil, while drawing with Paraguay over the weekend.
The visitors have also found wins hard to come by on their travels as they’ve posted just two wins out of their last 10 matches on the road with victories at Paraguay and Colombia, but they’ve been unbeaten in their last five visits to Venezuela which will give them belief in getting a result of sorts on Tuesday evening.
In addition, Uruguay possess deadly striker, Luis Suarez, who has bagged four goals in six group matches to date in this campaign and looks likely to be a serious threat in this fixture.
Four of the previous seven meetings between these two nations have ended in stalemate and another draw could well be on the cards here as well.