KEY POINTS:
The All Blacks' fourth and final World Cup opponent will be decided this weekend at Estadio Parque Central del Club Nacional.
The ground, somewhere in the suburbs of Montevideo, will see Uruguay host Portugal in the second leg of their duel to join the All Blacks, Italy, Scotland and Romania in group C of the sixth global tournament. It is the last game in a protracted qualifying programme which began in 2004.
To the victor the spoils of four probable defeats at the World Cup including a thrashing from the All Blacks.
Forget the debates about the appropriate number of teams in the tournament, forget the likelihood few of the All Blacks will know the game is on, this is a big deal for the two sides.
Uruguay need to reverse a 12-5 loss in Lisbon a fortnight ago if they are to advance to their third World Cup. They qualified for the 1999 tournament and then again four years in Sydney where they were captained by the remarkable 40-year-old Diego Ormaechea. Uruguay won a match at each event.
Portugal have never been to a World Cup. But their quest has caught the country's affection so much that the sports paper A Bola has been forced to cut some of the massive soccer coverage in favour of the oval ball intrigue.
The team nicknamed "Os Lobos" or the wolves, has battled through matches against Ukraine, Georgia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Romania, Italy and Morocco for the home and away shootout against Uruguay. Portugal outscored their rivals two tries to one in Lisbon and the television sports channel deployed soccer cameras to record the triumph.
This weekend, the prize awaits in Montevideo. Portugal made their international rugby debut in 1935, Uruguay 13 years later but you need to be a trainspotting rugby historian to reel off the names of their prominent players.
The most famous were Uruguayan, players from the Old Christians Club, whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972 when they were on their way to Chile to play a match. Some survived a 72-day ordeal, during which time they were forced to eat the flesh of their fallen teammates to stay alive, an incredible tale of survival which spawned books and a movie.
Any comparison is irreverent. However either Portugal or Uruguay will have a four-year tale of survival to tell after this weekend in Montevideo.
