Soccer-South America the toughest group, says Pekerman

By Brian Homewood ST PETERSBURG, July 25 (Reuters) - South America is still the most difficult continent to qualify for the World Cup from, Colombia coach Jose Pekerman said after draw on Saturday. Teams face long journeys and must play in heat, cold and high altitude during the marathon 18-match, two-year campaign but Pekerman said it was also the quality of the opposition which made qualifying from South America such a challenge. "It's always been (the most difficult) and now, it's even more so," he told Reuters. "If you analyse the last World Cup, six out of the 10 South American teams were present, five of them got into the last 16 and four of them knocked each other out when any of those could have reached the final," he said. Pekerman, who led his side to the quarter-finals in 2014, added that traditionally moderate teams like Ecuador, Paraguay and Venezuela had improved significantly. "We have all these teams trying to qualify for the World Cup," he said. "The others have improved a lot, they have developed, they have players in Europe, in important leagues, they have experience and this gap that existed before is getting smaller all the time. "You have to take them all very seriously as high-risk opponents." Remarkably, the South American group has used exactly the same order of fixtures for the last four World Cup qualifying competitions, from 2002 to 2014, but this time it was decided to make a change. Saturday's draw, while not sorting the teams into groups, established the order of matches and landed crisis-torn Brazil with a tough start at Copa America champions Chile. Argentina will host Ecuador while Uruguay must travel to La Paz to face Bolivia at 3,600 metres above sea level. Brazil will always be missing Neymar as he completes a four-match suspension imposed at the Copa America. "It's always nice at the draw, the problems start when you start playing," Brazil coach Dunga told reporters. "Neymar will be us for the rest of the qualifiers, so we have to think about the whole competition and not just the first two games. "In a long competition, you have good moments, not so good moments and when things get difficult, you have to be able to react. "A team is not built on technical quality, you have to have personality, you need dedication and you have to know how to suffer." (Editing by Ed Osmond)