“Over the next few days South America’s World Cup sides will present their case for the defence. The continent’s sides made a strong showing in South Africa 2010; all five made it out of the group phase, four reached the quarter-finals and Uruguay (who had finished fifth in qualifying) made it into the semis. Naturally, good things are expected next year when the World Cup finally returns to South America. But on the evidence of the 2014 qualifiers, there could be a problem. A common theme of the campaign was teams tended to be better in attack than defence.” BBC