Latin America and the World Cup

In perusing the World Cup matchups and results to date, I find it interesting to note that of the 32 teams that made the World Cup, 7 teams hail from Latin America. That's almost 25% of the teams in the tournament. Quite impressive. But even more impressive is the fact that if things continue along the path that is currently in place in terms of group leaders and likely qualifiers to Round 2, 6 of these 7 teams will be moving to the next round. That's 6 out of 16, or about 38% of the teams. And every group that has at least one Latin American team in it, has a Latin American team currently in the first place spot. And of the two groups that feature two Latin American teams, one group (Group A) is sending both Latin American teams to the next round (Uruguay and Mexico). The only disappointment from the Latin American region is Honduras, which is currently in last place in Group H, which is currently being led by Chile. I think this is an incredible testament to the quality of Soccer in Latin America this World Cup season. Let's see how the region fares in the subsequent rounds. And if you add the US to the mix as part of the Western Hemisphere's representation in the World Cup, it only adds to the impressiveness of the achievement.