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"Would any South American nation," asks reader Craig Thompson, " consider appointing a European coach (specifically Italian), and would the coach succeed with a South American team?"

There are a few precedents here. took Peru to victory in the 1939 Copa America. More recently, Xavier Azkargorta from Spain qualified Bolivia for the 1994 World Cup. And at around the same time Dussan Draskovic from Montenegro played an important part in the early stages of Ecuador's rise.

Paraguay also give us some examples, especially relevant since the question specifically asked about Italians. Vessilio Bartoli was in charge of the national team in the 50s. He had previously enjoyed considerable success in domestic Paraguayan football, which was not true of the most recent case, that of , who parachuted in from Italy to take Paraguay to the 2002 World Cup.

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World Cup qualification in South America came to a close with only one change from the previous two campaigns. Brazil, Paraguay and, in the end, , while Uruguay claimed fifth spot, the play-off position, for the third time running. The sole modification is that Chile have qualified instead of Ecuador.

This brings to a halt - we shall find out if only temporarily - the rise of teams from the north of continent. made it to the World Cups of 1990, '94 and '98, and were at the last two. This time they have missed out, and since the spotlight will be off them for a while, now would seem to be an appropriate moment to have a look at their progress.

In the case of Ecuador, that progress has been immense. There were some depressing scenes just over a week ago after . As the players left the pitch they were abused by some of the crowd in Quito.

Supporters everywhere can have short memories, and can be astonishingly quick to take success for granted. It was only 20 years ago that Ecuador were giving signs that they were not merely making up the numbers.

In such a short space it is nothing short of extraordinary that they have been to two World Cups, and performed with honour in both - but problems are now building up.

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As the heavens opened in Buenos Aires it took Diego Maradona a few seconds to go from to , from howling in the storm trapped in tragedy to singing, dancing and sliding in the rain in celebration.

Peru's equaliser in the last minute of normal-time was swiftly followed by In all the drama and the emotion, one question should not be overlooked - how on earth could Argentina get themselves in such a mess against opponents whose away record in the campaign going into the game was so appalling? (eight games, all lost, two goals scored and 24 conceded).

After his injury-time winner, lumbering centre-forward goes home as the hero. But he was also the villain - or more so, Maradona was, for introducing Palermo at half-time. It was yet another panic change at the interval where Maradona tore apart the structure of his side.

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It's South America's newest force against the oldest when .

It is a match with much to teach about the geography of the continent and the history of the game in this part of the world.

Introduced mainly by the British, football first caught on in the South Cone, in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo - a region that was going through large scale immigration and rapid urbanisation.

Football provided the new city population with a common language, and before long the game had been re-interpreted by the locals. A sinuous, balletic style replaced the muscular Christianity straight line running of the English.

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