Football: Slovenia Lose First Match of South American Tour
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The two-time world champions welcomed Slovenia at the Centenario Stadium in front of 55,000 spectators in what was one of the last warm-up matches of the South American powerhouse ahead of the World Cup.
Uruguay gave their fans what their wished for by defeating Slovenia, whose head coach Srečko Katanec opted for some youth in the starting line-up in a bid to test his players for the upcoming Euro 2016 qualifiers in the autumn.
The guests started the match with their top side, with the exception of superstar Luis Suarez, who is nursing an injury, but Slovenia managed to fend off the initial attack and even created some chances early on.
Uruguay scored to take a 1:0 lead in the 37th minute, when veteran Diego Forlan sent an accurate cross from the left side to the box, finding Edinson Cavani for a header that found the net behind Slovenia's goalkeeper Samir Handanović.
Fans saw no real goal opportunities in the second half until the 77th minute, when Christian Stuani took advantage of confusion in the Slovenian box following a corner kick by Forlan to score Uruguay's second and set the final score.
Despite the loss, Slovenia's coach congratulated his players. "I think that we played a very good match. The only difference is that we failed to score on our opportunities, while they didn't", Katanec told the press.
Rajko Rotman, who made his debut for Slovenia last night, said that the game felt great. "We showed that we can be equal to such a team as Uruguay."
Slovenia will have two days off before the match with Argentina in Buenos Aires on Saturday. Argentina, one of the favourite's for the World Cup, defeated Trinidad and Tobago 3:0 in Wednesday's friendly.