Copa Football Cup

Copa America 2011 Player Profiles: Jefferson Farfan - Peru

It seems like Jefferson Farfan has been on the world football scene forever, so it's hard to believe that he's only 26 years old. He made his first team debut with Alianza Lima in Peru at 16, started scoring goals at 17, and guided them to a league title at 18 before being sold to PSV Eindhoven. He did some more winning and scoring there before moving on to Schalke 04, where he's done a fair bit of scoring and winning. Peru aren't expected to do much in this year's Copa America, but that doesn't make Farfan any less interesting.

Despite their large population, natural resources, location, and trade agreements, Peru's economy isn't great, and as a result, neither are their football teams. Some of the greatest footballers come from poverty, but they eventually get snapped up by big clubs in their late teens and molded into stars. Peru's clubs aren't doing  that at the rate that they should with their population, and as a result, Farfan is almost in a class of his own on his team.

That lack of talent around him didn't stop him from becoming South America's leading goal scorer in 2006 World Cup qualifying, but he didn't do any scoring in the last World Cup qualifying cycle. Thanks to a hotel party scandal, Farfan was out of the national team picture for a few months. He's back in the team now, but he has not yet come back to his scoring ways. It won't be easy for him to do so in Copa America, but there's no doubt he has the talent to pull it off.

Farfan scored an incredible 57 league goals in his four years at PSV Eindhoven as he helped the team to four consecutive Eredivisie titles and one Dutch Cup title. At the end of the 2007-08 season, he was sold to Schalke 04 in Germany for the hefty price of 10 million Euros, and he's continued to shine there.

While his first two seasons were a major success in a Schalke shirt, Farfan struggled in the Bundesliga this year as Schalke had an absolutely terrible season domestically. They were, however, brilliant in Europe, with Farfan being no exception. In Schalke's 10 UEFA Champions League games, Farfan managed four goals as the team made it all the way to the semifinals of the competition. Though they were thoroughly defeated by Manchester United, most pundits cited Farfan as the only reason Schalke ever had a chance. When his teammates could actually win the ball back, he looked dangerous.

Farfan can play as both a winger and as a forward in multiple formations. His most common deployment for Schalke has been on the right side of a 4-4-2, while he usually plays on the right side of a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 for Peru. He has played as the center forward in a 4-3-3 for his country before, but that seems unlikely in this case. Both him and Claudio Pizarro are apparently fit and healthy, so look for Pizarro to occupy the center forward spot with Farfan and youngster Luis Advincula on either side of him.

Football blog - ThreeMatchBan - A guide to the 2011 Copa America ...

Santiago Silva is a fearsome, snorting, stamping bull of a centre-forward, shaven headed, tall and broad-shouldered. He can play up front alone, powerful enough to hold the ball up and bully defenders, mobile enough to work the channels. Most importantly, he has an ineffable eye for goal. He has scored everywhere he has played, from his homeland, to Brazil, for Energie Cottbus in Germany, and to a host of Argentine clubs. Recently he appears to have settled at Velez Sarsfield (though reports suggest he may be receptive to Boca Juniors’ attempts to use him as a replacement for Martin Palermo) where he is the spearhead of the attack, and where he has just won the Argentine title and scored 32 goals in 71 games.

But Silva is Uruguayan, and he can’t get a game for his country no matter how well he does in club football. Not only that: he’s really nowhere near the Uruguayan squad, with little chance of being called up barring a freak accident at a Squad Asado (barbecue) involving an exploding cow, leaving only himself and the recently-snubbed Ernesto Chevanton fit to play in attack. Because Uruguay don’t need him. Uruguay are quite rich in forwards at the moment, thank you very much.

For a country with a population of just three and a half million people, Uruguay’s achievements in international football are simply astounding. Prior to the founding of the World Cup, Uruguay won the closest equivalent, the Olympic title, in 1924 and 1928. Football had developed in a strange isolation around the River Plate in the cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and the short passing style mixed with outrageous dribbles known as “la nuestra” in Argentina had a Uruguayan equivalent. This helped the two countries dominate the first World Cup tournament, held in Uruguay in 1930, with Uruguay beating Argentina 4-2 in the final. They won again, in Brazil in 1950, famously beating the hosts 2-1 in the Maracana in the decider. Since then they’ve had a couple of fourth place finishes – in 1954 and 1970 – and generally been competitive, but their status has been lowlier than such titans of the early game would expect.

The Copa America is where they tend to shine: Uruguay have won it 14 times (a record they share with Argentina), and in recent years seem to win one each decade or so. But their last win was on home soil in 1995, when a team containing two all time greats in the form of Enzo Francescoli and Daniel Fonseca, surrounded by the likes of Gus Poyet, Pablo Bengoechea and Sergio Martinez, beat world champions Brazil on penalties in the final. This is where all those strikers come in. Uruguay are due a Copa America win. And for the first time in two decades they have a squad that looks capable of that.

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