Its population is less than Connecticut’s. Its GDP is smaller than Delaware’s. It is roughly the same size as Cambodia or Suriname. Its people have never won a Nobel Prize, nor an individual Olympic gold medal. So, I asked some natives recently: How? Why? What makes Uruguay so good at soccer?
Diego Rossi and Nicolás Lodeiro both anchored their answer in the very first gift they ever received, the same one thousands of Uruguayan kids unwrap each year: a ball.
Rossi is from the capital, Montevideo; Lodeiro is from a border town, Paysandú. Rossi grew up in the 21st century, and Lodeiro in the 20th.