The British media now report on European football, and it's fairly easy to look up the Italian or Spanish league tables, but Latin America's still a blank outside the World Cup. How many people could name the four big Rio clubs? - surely the sort of information every well-educated gentleman should have at his fingertips. Here's an interesting item from the BBC on how the successful clubs now, both in Brazil and Colombia, are to be found outside the capitals.
The sad truth is that Rio, so crucial to the past of Brazilian football, is considerably less important to its present.A glance at the Copa Libertadores is enough to prove the point. Brazil has five entrants in South America's version of the Champions League.
One is from Coritiba in the south and the other four are from the state of Sao Paulo.
Rio has not had a team qualify for the competition since 2002, when Flamengo lost four out of six games and finished bottom of their group.
Rio's big four - Flamengo, Vasco da Gama, Fluminense and Botafogo - are these days more likely to be found battling relegation than fighting for national titles and qualifying for the Libertadores.
And here's the latest on the Copa Libertadores 2005, where, in Group 3, Bolivia's The Strongest are sadly proving to be The Weakest.
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