He wants to sign for his hometown club and complete two glorious homecomings in one year, of course 😉

You're half right, they're certainly not very good compared to a few years ago, but as well as the English second division player they're also still "hauling" players from all the top European leagues as well as Brazil, Mexico etc. In fact I'd guess BBD is the only non-top flight player in the squad. They're still a strong international side in the grand scheme of things.

The point was that the standard across all S. American teams is very high, which is generally true - much more so than Europe. For a start there are about 50 teams in Europe of wildly varying quality, picking one poor-ish one and saying it's the same thing makes no sense. I wouldn't call Chile a "good" side at the moment but there's no comparison with Scotland - and that's considering Scotland are relatively good at the moment. They've got nothing like the quality of Chile.

Don't know if you're serious here but that's a ridiculous comparison, there's absolutely no parallel there at all

This is an incredibly tense and testy match, been stopped several times for scuffles and Chile are down to ten.. crowd felt aggrieved that the ref failed to give several blatant fouls, massive relief when Ben scored, got mobbed by the subs coming onto the pitch from the sideline. As I type a Paraguay player just got sent off for an elbow (I think? Or a stamp maybe) on BBD

scored! Absolute cracker to break the deadlock on 69 mins. Crucial goal. They’ve now gone 2-0 up

Starts up front vs Paraguay in 30 mins

You don’t have to go back that far either, they were a fantastic team only 6/7 years ago when they won the Copa America twice and outplayed Spain in the World Cup. It’s been a steady decline since then and there really doesn’t look to be much of a new generation coming through (partly explaining the zealous pinning of hopes on BBD)..

Well I said I’d report back but there’s really not a lot to report. Lost 2-0, dreadful performance by Chile and BBD did nothing of note, looked pretty lost up front and failed to read his team-mates’ play (and at times vice versa). Hooked on 77’ which was at least 20 minutes after I’d have taken him off… Chile’s qualification hopes looking very grim now, this is a poor team compared to recent years. The atmosphere on Sunday against Paraguay will be interesting if they go behind..

1-0 down at half time.. being played as something of a target man but seen very little of the ball. Not really taking up the right positions either tbh

Seems like a classic case of a young player growing into himself and discovering his confidence. Good on him, it takes guts if things don’t go well at first.

Alright Rovers, just thought I’d check back in again here ahead of tonight’s game, which I’d have thought BB will be starting. From a Champo point of view he’s on fire eh? Last time I was on here the reviews of his performances and place in the team were very lukewarm and a lot of the talk about his call-up basically related to how much more you could sell him for - understandably so, he’d hardly set the world on fire there. Presumably that’s changed a bit? From the outside it seems the Chile experience really was the making of him.. I’ll look forward to seeing him in our fixture at the end of November. Anyway here in Chile he continues to be a mini-sensation and him being back with the squad after missing the last qualifiers is a big boost, he’s incredibly popular with the fans and you can tell with the squad as well. I’ll be watching the game tonight and keeping a close eye on him, I shall endeavour to report back…

Neymar had that magic as a young player, the playing the game for the love of it, the taking on a player one too many times just for the hell of it. But it's been mostly coached out of him now, and the stats probably show that he is a more effective - to use a fittingly utilitarian adjective - player for it. I don't think it's so much that they don't produce players like that any more, it's just there generally seems to be less and less room in today's ultra-athletic, tactics-ruled game for those types of maverick creative players.

Yeah I've been thinking the same thing. There's no real magic about Brazil any more, notwithstanding the fact they're easily the best team in this tournament. Even with Neymar they're really just another ultra-drilled, high-pressing, ball-recycling, play-through-the-lines elite team. Kind of dull.

Yeah watching this Brazil team is like watching a Premier League XI, it's weird. That's a pretty recent thing though.

2 syllables, the first rhyming with "air". The thing is the way "air" (and bear, and hair etc) is pronounced is very dependent on accent and origin. In the UK we generally don't enunciate the /r/ phoneme in those kind of words, so it just sounds like Breeh-ton. In the US they'd pronounce it very differently (probably even chuck an extra syllable in)

There's a month between the CA final and the start of the Champo. And anyway if they have Brazil next round as seems likely, he'll be home a lot earlier 😉

1st rule of Chilean football: no matter the era or the quality of the selección, you will always get done by a header from a corner by fukin Paraguay

It takes some small level of discipline but it’s easy to speak to your kids in your own language, even if you converse with your partner in another. It’s a real wasted opportunity not to IMO.

I’m genuinely pissed off at her for this

Several of his teammates (Vargas, Vidal, Medel etc) are in big trouble tonight for breaching Covid regs by inviting someone into the camp. Supposedly a hairdresser but the suspicion is it was more than that. There’s talk of suspensions and fines… the Chilean public have really had enough of this generation of decadent dickhead “superstars” and they want them kicked off the team. They want a new generation, which is partly why they’ve taken to shy, floppy-haired, tattoo-less Ben so warmly. Big Ben not involved in the shenanigans, which will only serve to enhance his already angelic reputation. 😇🙂

Hello all. Thought I'd register on here tonight as I'm a Stoke fan living in Chile for the past 15 years, following the local football all that time through thick and thin, completely bewildered by the fact that a kid who grew up about 3 miles from me in Stoke-on-Trent is now playing and scoring for the national team and is a complete fucking sensation on Chilean social media. Absolutely bizarre. Genuinely a bit emotional about him scoring earlier for some weird reason. I've got Chilean friends, neighbours, acquaintances here sending me memes and articles about him all over the place. There was a short documentary piece about him on one of the major news channels the other night. What a story. Good lad Ben. Let's see how he gets on in the rest of the tourny. It's certainly added a bit of interest in these parts. Anyway, hello. 😉