World Cup Review: Southern Cone conquerors (Updated)

Update:

We'll have more details on Friday of Mexico's historic 2-0 win over France along with other news like problems with preparations for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Original Post:

A trio of teams from South America’s Southern Cone played yesterday and today at the World Cup and all three won their respective matches. Here’s our quick look at these great games.

As we mentioned in passing yesterday, Chile won over fellow Latin Americans Honduras with the sole goal coming from Jean Beausejour. Chilean winger Mark Gonzalez was humble in a victory where his side “could have scored more goals. As a team we did things wrong and we will try to fix that up." For the Central Americans, meanwhile, they will need to bounce back against a strong Spanish team looking to shake off their shock defeat to Switzerland.

South Africa are close to becoming the first host country not to qualify past the group stage after their 3-0 loss to Uruguay. Diego Forlan scored twice for los celestes though after the game he admitted that “the important thing is to win”, not his personal goal tally. According to the BBC the “South Americans were much more forward-thinking than during their nervous opening match with France”.

Today’s video highlights via Univision.com come from Argentina’s resounding 4-1 win this morning over Group B rivals South Korea. Gonzalo Higuain scored Argentina’s fourth-ever hat trick in World Cup history with assists on all three goals from Lionel Messi. Argentine coach Diego Maradona’s mind games seemed to have worked, as his team is only a stone’s throw away from making it into the round of 16.

Online Sources- univision.com, New York Times, BBC Sport, The Latin Americanist, Sky Sports, The Telegraph