Look away now USMNT fans: Uruguay are international football’s perennial overachievers, consistently performing well in tournaments despite a population of only around 3.5 million.
They won the tournament’s first edition on their way to collecting six of the first nine and 15 in total, a record they share with Argentina.
Like Uruguay, Argentina had most of their success before the tournament changed its name from the South American Football Championship in 1975, winning 12 of their 15 trophies before 1960. In 2021, however, they got their hands on the trophy again, inspired by Messi, who was seven when Argentina previously won the competition in 1993.
Over the past three decades, Brazil have been the dominant team in South America, collecting five of their nine trophies since ending a 40-year drought in 1989. They were back-to-back winners in 1997, 1999, 2004 and 2007, off the back of a golden generation of Brazilian talent, including Ballon d’Or winners Ronaldo (not the superstar from Portugal), Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Kaka.
Chile had a golden spell in the mid-2010s, winning back-to-back trophies in 2015 and 2016, the only two wins in their history. Paraguay and Peru have also won it a couple of times, and Bolivia and Colombia have one each, both winning as host nations.
