The South American Championship 1957 was a football tournament held in Peru and won by Argentina with Brazil as runners-up. Bolivia, and Paraguay withdrew from the tournament.
Managed by Guillermo Stábile, Argentina won the tournament with a team widely considered one of the best squads in its history,[2] and the first "legendary team" of Argentina since its inception in 1901.[3] The attacking line (nicknamed Carasucias) was composed of Omar Corbatta, Humberto Maschio, Antonio Angelillo, Enrique Sívori and Osvaldo Cruz. Beyond its virtues and high goalscoring (25 goals in 6 matches), Argentina was a well-balanced team with a strong defense with Pedro Dellacha and Néstor Rossi as two of its most notable players that helped the team to finish the competition with the fewest goals conceded.
Despite Argentina having won other South American competitions before, the 1957 Sudamericano was the first Argentine achievement with a great repercussion on the media. Likewise, Sívori was chosen as the best player of the tournament.[3]
Because of their great performances, Maschio, Angelillo and Sívori would be traded to Italian clubs (Bologna, Internazionale and Juventus respectively) after the tournament, losing the chance to play the FIFA World Cup held in Sweden one year later,[4] due to the AFA interventor, Raúl Colombo, not calling them for the national team considering that "we are plenty of players here".[2]
People always remember us. Maybe we played just a few matches and that South American championship still remains in their memory. Despite we had played some friendly matches before travelling Peru, people almost could not see us play in our country.
— Humberto Maschio in an interview with Clarín, 2007
Corbatta was a phenomenal player. He did impossible things. He was crazy, but about football. When he dribbled it seemed that rivals could never take the ball away from him. He became an idol of Limeños (people from Lima). After the 3–0 win over Brazil, he was acclaimed by the whole attendance, giving his shirt to them as retribution.[3]
Argentina (11th title)
Brazil
Uruguay
Peru
