WHEN your neighbours include Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, qualifying for the World Cup is always likely to be an uphill battle. If your national sport is baseball, the odds get even longer. Of the ten active members of Conmebol, the South American Football Confederation, Venezuela alone has never qualified. In the past, the occasional victory on the pitch went largely unnoticed: a caravan of flag-waving soccer fans in Caracas was more likely to be from an immigrant community celebrating a win by Spain, Italy or Portugal. It was these “colonies”, which rapidly expanded with mass European immigration after the second world war, that laid the foundations of today’s Venezuelan football league. But by then American and Caribbean influence—partly transmitted via the oil industry—had helped turn baseball into a national obsession. It was baseball, not football, that was broadcast live on radio. Although school football flourished, the serious money and organisation went into baseball teams, offering few opportunities for wannabe soccer players.

This World Cup was supposed to be different. Nowadays, “la Vinotinto” (as the team is known, on account of its wine-red strip) is a big brand with a large fan base. With Brazil hosting the tournament, and therefore not competing for a place, the biggest obstacle to qualification was out of the way. And the squad has been transformed in recent years under the guidance of, first, Richard Páez, and then César Farías.

Mocking the aspirations of the Cinderella of South American football is no longer as safe as it was, as Chile discovered to its cost during the 2011 Copa América, the regional tournament. Ahead of a quarter-final match against Venezuela, Chilean team sponsor Entel PCS, a mobile-phone operator, aired an ill-advised television ad whose punchline was: “They teach us about soap-operas, we teach them about passion for football.” Venezuela won the match 2-1.

Hopes that this World Cup would be the Vinotinto’s time were not to be, however. Although they came closer to qualification than ever before, taking sixth place out of the nine, they still missed out. Mr Farías has since departed; the Vinotinto is again adrift, without a manager or a strategy for bringing fresh talent into the squad. As for the next few weeks, without a national team to support, Venezuelans will likely resort to their traditional plan B—back Brazil.