Host Venezuela puts its Copa hopes in its huge star

	For Venezuela forward Juan Arango, happiness would be making the semifinals of the continental tournament. Bob Martin/SI
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Reprinted from SI Latino

Like all of Venezuela these days, Juan Arango is betting on number 18. "Siempre," he says, pulling a few chips off his 500-euro stack. "Always."

It's just past midnight at the Gran Casino Mallorca -- still early, if you're going by Spanish time -- and the finest soccer player in the history of Venezuela surveys the roulette wheel with the same unblinking gaze he usually reserves for a free kick against Barcelona or Real Madrid. With his wife, Laurys, at his side, Arango lays his chips on 18, the number he wears as the most lethal goal-scoring threat for RCD Mallorca and for La Vinotinto, his country's suddenly ascendant national team.

The wheel spins one way, the marble spins the other way, and for a fleeting moment this tiny, self-contained universe is a microcosm of the pressure-packed world that Arango will enter when La Vinotinto takes the field against Bolivia to kick off the 42nd Copa América in San Cristóbal, Venezuela, on June 26.

All eyes are on number 18. What else is new?

There's a reason, of course, why Venezuela has always been known as a baseball country. La Vinotinto is the only member of CONMEBOL never to have qualified for the World Cup, and it hasn't won a game in the Copa América since 1967. But the winds of change are blowing in South American soccer.

Arango, 27, is convinced that Venezuela can reach the 2010 World Cup after a historic improvement in the 2006 eliminatorias, in which he led his country to victories against Colombia, Bolivia, Uruguay, Ecuador and Perú. And hosting the Copa América is the perfect opportunity to show the world that Venezuela is ready to sit at soccer's casino table with the continent's traditional high rollers.

"For Venezuelan soccer, this means something very big," says the man known as Arangol, relaxing in May on a hotel terrace overlooking Palma's gorgeous Bay of Cala Major. "The sport has grown a lot in the past few years, for both the players and the fans. This is the first time that Venezuela is celebrating such an important event, and I believe the whole country wants the players to have a good Copa América -- and for Venezuelan soccer to keep growing."

The signs of that growth are everywhere in Venezuela: in the stadiums that have been filled with fans and noise during La Vinotinto's pre-Copa friendlies; on the shoulders of children wearing T-shirts with "Arango 18" on the back ("It's beautiful," says Laurys); and even in the voice of a baseball fan such as Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who is fast turning into a soccer supporter.