The Venezuela national football team has the unhappy record of being the only South American Football Confederation team to have never qualified for a world cup. The country has more similarities to Caribbean nations than South American ones when it comes to sport. Baseball dominates and this, in the past, has taken the focus in the country away from football. Lately things have been changing.
As football continues to expand globally and other baseball mad countries such as the United States and Japan embrace the game, there are now more incentives for being a football player. This has seen an improvement in fortunes for the Venezuela national football team who have traditionally struggled in world cup qualifying competitions.
The side finished a record fourth place in the 2011 Copa America which represents a real achievement for the country. This was followed up in 2014 world cup qualifying as they defeated Argentina for the first time in their history. This is a truly landmark result as the Venezuela national football team’s biggest defeat came at the hands of the same opposition. In 1975 they lost 11-0, which highlights their progression. The team also only began entering qualification for world cups in 1966 and it took them until 1982 to record their first qualifying match win.