1927 South American Championship

In 1910, the Asociación del Fútbol Argentino (AFA) organised a tournament to mark the 100th anniversary of the May Revolution. The Copa Centenario Revolución de Mayo was contested by the national teams of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay and is considered to be a precursor to the South American Championship.^[1] Six years later, the AFA organised a second tournament, this time to celebrate the centenary of the Argentine Declaration of Independence. Alongside the three who had contested the Copa Centenario Revolución de Mayo, Brazil were invited to compete and the South American Championship was born.^[2] During the competition, the four associations of the competing teams met on 9 July 1916 and founded the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (CONMEBOL).^[3]

Uruguay were the defending champions having won the 1926 edition after defeating Paraguay 6–1 in their final match of the competition.^[4] Uruguay were also the most successful team in the history of the competition having won the six of the first 10 editions.^[5]

Brazil, Chile and Paraguay withdrew prior to the start of the competition so only four of the seven CONMEBOL members would compete.^[6]

The Argentina team departed from Retiro railway station, Buenos Aires as they travelled Valparaíso, Chile on their way to Peru. There, they joined the Uruguay team and boarded a ship to the port of Callao, Lima. They arrived in Peru after eight days.^[7]

The tournament was played as a round-robin where each team would play all of the others once. The winner would be decided by the total number of points obtained across all matches played. The winners and runners-up of the tournament would qualify for the 1928 Summer Olympics.^[6]

All matches were held at the Estadio Nacional in Lima.^[6]

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The competition began on 30 October when Argentina defeated Bolivia 7–1. Two days later, defending champions Uruguay began the tournament with a 4–0 win against Peru. On 6 November, Pedro Petrone and Roberto Figueroa both scored hat-tricks as Uruguay won 9–0 against Bolivia.^[6]

A week later, Peru defeated Bolivia 3–2. In their last match on 20 November, Uruguay narrowly lost 3–2 to Argentina which gave Argentina the opportunity to win the championships if they avoided defeat against Peru in the final match of the competition. Despite being pegged back early, Argentina ran out 5–1 winners against Peru on 27 November as they won the competition for the third time. The result also meant that Argentina and Uruguay would qualify for the 1928 Summer Olympics.^[6]

There were 37 goals scored in 6 matches, for an average of 6.17 goals per match.

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

1 own goal