2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONMEBOL)

The South American section of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification will act as qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to be held in Russia, for national teams which are members of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL). A total of 4.5 slots (4 direct slots and 1 inter-confederation play-off slot) in the final tournament are available for CONMEBOL teams.

Format
The qualification structure is the same as the previous five tournaments. The ten teams will play in a league of home-and-away round-robin matches. The top four teams will qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and the fifth-placed team will advance to the inter-confederation play-offs.

Unlike previous qualifying tournaments where the fixtures were pre-determined, the fixtures were determined by draw, which was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw on 25 July 2015, starting 18:00 MSK (UTC+3), at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

For scheduling reasons, Argentina and Brazil were automatically positioned as Teams 4 and 5 respectively to ensure that no team has to play both of them on any double matchday. The remaining eight teams will be drawn into one of the remaining eight positions from Teams 1 to 10 (except 4 and 5).

Entrants
All 10 national teams from CONMEBOL entered qualification.

Schedule
There will be a total of 18 matchdays: four in 2015, eight in 2016, and six in 2017.

The inter-confederation play-offs are scheduled to be played between 6–14 November 2017.

Inter-confederation play-offs
The draw for the inter-confederation play-offs was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw on 25 July 2015, starting 18:00 MSK (UTC+3), at the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, Saint Petersburg. The fifth-placed team from CONMEBOL was drawn against the first-placed team from OFC, with the CONMEBOL team hosting the second leg.

Goalscorers
There have been 89 goals scored in 30 matches, for an average of goals per match.


 * 4 goals


 * 🇪🇨 Felipe Caicedo
 * Dario Lezcano


 * 3 goals


 * Alexis Sánchez
 * Eduardo Vargas
 * Arturo Vidal
 * 🇨🇴 Carlos Bacca
 * 🇵🇪 Jefferson Farfán
 * Edinson Cavani
 * Diego Godín


 * 2 goals


 * 🇦🇷 Gabriel Mercado
 * 🇧🇴 Juan Carlos Arce
 * 🇧🇴 Rodrigo Ramallo
 * 🇧🇷 Douglas Costa
 * 🇧🇷 Renato Augusto
 * 🇧🇷 Ricardo Oliveira
 * 🇧🇷 Willian
 * Mauricio Pinilla
 * 🇨🇴 Edwin Cardona
 * 🇨🇴 James Rodríguez
 * 🇪🇨 Fidel Martínez
 * 🇵🇪 Paolo Guerrero
 * Martín Cáceres
 * 🇻🇪 Rómulo Otero


 * 1 goal


 * 🇦🇷 Lucas Biglia
 * 🇦🇷 Ángel Di María
 * 🇦🇷 Ezequiel Lavezzi
 * 🇦🇷 Lionel Messi
 * 🇧🇴 Rudy Cardozo
 * 🇧🇴 Alejandro Chumacero
 * 🇧🇴 Yasmani Duk
 * 🇧🇷 Dani Alves
 * 🇧🇷 Filipe Luís
 * 🇧🇷 Lucas Lima
 * Felipe Gutiérrez
 * 🇨🇴 Teófilo Gutiérrez
 * 🇨🇴 Sebastián Pérez Cardona
 * 🇪🇨 Michael Arroyo
 * 🇪🇨 Miler Bolaños
 * 🇪🇨 Frickson Erazo
 * 🇪🇨 Ángel Mena
 * 🇪🇨 Jefferson Montero
 * 🇪🇨 Enner Valencia
 * Lucas Barrios
 * Édgar Benítez
 * Derlis González
 * 🇵🇪 Raúl Ruidíaz
 * Abel Hernández
 * Álvaro Pereira
 * Diego Rolán
 * Luis Suárez
 * 🇻🇪 Richard Blanco
 * 🇻🇪 Josef Martínez
 * 🇻🇪 Mario Rondón
 * 🇻🇪 Christian Santos
 * 🇻🇪 Mikel Villanueva

Discipline
A player is automatically suspended for the next match for the following offences:
 * Receiving a red card (red card suspensions may be extended for serious offences)
 * Receiving two yellow cards in two different matches (yellow card suspensions are carried forward to the play-offs, but not the finals or any other future international matches)

The following suspensions were (or will be) served during the qualifying matches:

Note: current suspensions are highlighted in red (as of matchday 6).

Broadcasters

 * Latin America: beIN Sports
 * 🇦🇷 Argentina: Torneos y Competencias
 * 🇧🇷 Brazil: beIN Sports, Globosat (SporTV and PFC) and TRAFFIC Media
 * 🇨🇴 Colombia: Caracol TV
 * 🇪🇨 Ecuador: TV CABLE Sports and DIRECTV
 * 🇮🇳 India: Sony ESPN
 * 🇵🇾 Paraguay: Teledeportes (all matches), Telefuturo and SNT (Some matches)
 * 🇺🇾 Uruguay: Tenfield (VTV and GolTV (only for Uruguay))