US Soccer Flops Hand Victory to Chã¡vez

After a week of euphoric pomp, last-minute preparations and poor defending the score is unofficial but unambiguous: Hugo Chávez 1, Empire 0.

The United States has crashed out of the Copa America, a regional football tournament, while the host, Venezuela, has made history by progressing to the second round.

Both nations have long traded insults and threats and now, courtesy of a proxy battle on and off the pitch, there is a result. Mr Chávez's self-styled socialist revolution has prevailed against the US.

The empire, as he calls the giant to the north, lost its first two games due to ropey defending. Regardless of the outcome of its third game last night against Colombia the team was due to board a flight home.

Venezuela, in a separate group, scored enough points to progress to the final eight for the first time in decades, suggesting that the baseball-obsessed country has finally embraced the beautiful game.

Venezuela's 2-0 win over Peru was only its second win in the tournament's history, the previous victory being against Bolivia 40 years ago. Not only that, but Mr Chávez's government has so far defied predictions of an organizational fiasco by hosting a slick, successful tournament in a range of new and spruced up stadiums.

According to legend Che Guevara once said that Latin America would be free only after it swapped baseball, which was imported by US marines, for football.

Commentators on state television channels have hailed Venezuela's first-round results as a sign that the Bolivarian revolution, named after the 19th-century liberation hero Simón Bolívar, is on track. That President George Bush's emissaries should be sent packing makes Venezuela's breakthrough all the sweeter, according to some football fans. "They might have the best military in the world but they haven't stood a chance on the pitch," said Jorge Bernal, 41, a fruit seller.

Mr Chávez was worried that opposition protesters would try to embarrass him during the regional showpiece but so far the only sign of hostility has been chants in some stadiums. State television has not aired footage of the chants.

Some analysts have attributed the relatively muted response to the government's decision to host all but one of the games outside the capital, Caracas, which is a hotbed of opposition.

Venezuela spent at least $1bn (£500m) on two new stadiums and renovations to seven others and to airports for the Copa America, which has brought together 12 national teams from the hemisphere.

Apart from dreadful results on the pitch, the US team - which anti-Chávez Venezuelans cheered with shouts of "viva el imperio" - was well treated until two federal agents who acted as bodyguards were accused of being terrorists.

"They jacked us around at the airport and then revoked the weapons permits," said William Brownfield, the American ambassador.

"It is an unusual way of doing business."