Blog del Instituto Cervantes de Londres

THIS might be football’s first African World Cup, but we can’t help noticing that it’s also a very Spanish-speaking affair. South America has always been well represented at the Mundial, of course, and we’re not just talking about Portuguese-speaking Brazil.

The difference this time is the way the so-called lesser teams from Latin America have so thoroughly outperformed the European ‘powers’ such as England, France and Italy. Oh, and Spain actually have a good chance of finally winning the World Cup for the first time to add to their European championship.

Paraguay and Uruguay – whose population combined is only slightly bigger than London’s – have both surprised the experts in reaching the quarter-finals alongside Spain and Argentina. Mexico and Chile did well too, and no doubt consider themselves unfortunate to have been paired with favourites Argentina and Brazil at the first knock-out stage.

Read more… LondonSpanish