Uruguay

No fixture matters more to Uruguay than the one against Argentina. The two sides met in what stands as Uruguay's first official international, on 20 July 1902, and lost 0-6 — a defeat that set the terms of a rivalry across the Río de la Plata that has run for well over a century since.

The Uruguayan Football Association, AUF, had been formed shortly before that, on 30 March 1900, and still governs the national side from Montevideo. Home games are played at the Estadio Centenario, which holds 60,235.

The shirt is light blue, worn with black shorts and socks, which is where the nickname La Celeste comes from; away kits switch to dark blue. Older references to the side as the Charrúas persist alongside it, though La Celeste is what sticks in commentary.

What separates Uruguay from almost every other football nation is the spread of what they have won rather than the count of it. They took the Olympic title twice, in Paris in 1924 and Amsterdam in 1928, then hosted and won the first FIFA World Cup in 1930. A second World Cup followed in 1950, away from home, against Brazil. Copa América has gone to Uruguay 15 times, more than any other country has managed in the tournament's history. No other national team has held the World Cup, the Olympic title and the Copa América all at once.

That 1950 final in Rio remains the country's last World Cup. Nothing since has matched it.