El Maestro awakens South America's sleeping giant

You would not expect anything less from a man who named his daughter Tania after a comrade of the iconic Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.
Oscar Tabarez has already upset the established order at this World Cup and Uruguay's book-loving coach intends to shake things up a little more before he leaves South Africa.
Having topped a first round group that was supposed to represent a stroll for France, the Uruguayans find South Korea, their second round opponents in Port Elizabeth on Saturday, standing between them and a first World Cup quarter-final appearance since they finished fourth in Mexico, 30 years ago.
"It's been so long since Uruguay did anything convincing at a World Cup it's very exciting", said Tabarez.
"We're happy to have got this far but we have not achieved all we want yet. We've shown we are a difficult opponent for anyone and we're feeling at ease. We are a tight-knit group and we have a lot of dreams in our mind".
Ranked 16th in the world, Tabarez's squad will be confident of overcoming opponents placed 31 places below them, although it is not the calculations of FIFA's statisticians that underpin the hopes of 3.5 million Uruguayans.
Instead it is the excellence of a defence that has yet to concede a goal in the tournament and the form of forwards Diego Forlan, Edinson Cavani and Luis Suarez, whose headed winner against Mexico on Tuesday followed a prolific 49-goal season for his club, Ajax.
Uruguay's re-emergence as a force on the world stage has come four and a half years after the nadir of defeat by Australia in a qualifying play-off for the 2006 finals.
Tabarez, who had coached his country at the 1990 tournament in Italy, where they went out to the hosts in the second round, resumed control in the traumatised aftermath of that setback.
A penalty shoot-out defeat in Sydney had delivered a devastating blow to a nation of football connoisseurs steeped in the legends of their 1930 and 1950 World Cup-winning teams.
Nicknamed El Maestro (the teacher), Tabarez gambled on jettisoning the bulk of the failure-tainted squad he inherited in the hope that a new generation would be ready in time for this World Cup.
There were false dawns - notably when Uruguay suffered a penalty shoot-out defeat to Brazil in the semi-finals of the 2007 Copa America - and the gamble very nearly back-fired when a 1-0 defeat by Argentina cost his squad automatic qualification for the finals.
By then however, the final piece in Tabarez's jigsaw, a reliable goalkeeper in the form of Lazio's Fernando Muslera, was in place and, this time around, the play-off, against Costa Rica, was comfortably negotiated.
"We were very inconsistent in qualifying, we had good and bad moments", Tabarez reflected. "When we first decided to choose the players we've put on the pitch here, they were four years younger".
"We paid dearly for that in terms of results but we thought that, if we did qualify, we would be in a better situation at the World Cup".
Tabarez still looks every bit the teacher he once was, his head tilted attentively to one side as he patiently fields questions from the world's media.
One he has been asked here is about the resemblence between his Uruguay and the Inter Milan that won this season's Champions League, the two sides sharing a capacity to allow opponents plenty of the ball while conceding few chances.
It is an approach that some deride as overly cautious, even 'anti-football'.
But Tabarez makes no apology for constructing his team around defenders like his captain Diego Lugano and FC Porto's Jorge Fucile.
"Not to have conceded a goal in 270 minutes at this level is a fabulous achievement", the 63-year-old said.