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Offline Deeks

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #810 on: July 03, 2019, 08:26:49 PM »
Peru beat a fighting Chile 3-0. They meet Brazil on Sunday in the final.

Offline soccerman

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #811 on: July 06, 2019, 08:25:40 PM »
Messi is overrated !
Now I know you're trolling

Offline pull stones

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #812 on: July 07, 2019, 07:41:56 AM »
Where can I watch the finals? there are no channels carrying the finals and I’ve searched spectrum cable channels up and down. I think fifa messed up this time around planning three finals on the same day, how dumb.

Offline Deeks

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #813 on: July 07, 2019, 11:19:14 AM »
Honestly, that is a bullshit red card.

Offline soccerman

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #814 on: July 07, 2019, 12:19:42 PM »
Where can I watch the finals? there are no channels carrying the finals and I’ve searched spectrum cable channels up and down. I think fifa messed up this time around planning three finals on the same day, how dumb.
If you're in Trinidad you may find it on one of the ESPN channels as they have the rights for the tournament. Bein Sports used to bring it now ESPN jumble them and showing it in the US on friggin ESPN plus. This afternoon ESPN showing World Series of poker and ESPN showing NBA summer league  :cursing:

Offline soccerman

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #815 on: July 07, 2019, 12:20:19 PM »
Honestly, that is a bullshit red card.
Very soft.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #816 on: July 07, 2019, 12:31:03 PM »
Honestly, that is a bullshit red card.
Very soft.

But, Gary Medel being Gary Medel. However, I'm not sure Messi has been himself lately.

Offline real madness

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #817 on: July 07, 2019, 12:55:55 PM »
Honestly, that is a bullshit red card.

I agree. Both players should have received yellow cards.

Offline real madness

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #818 on: July 07, 2019, 12:56:54 PM »
Where can I watch the finals? there are no channels carrying the finals and I’ve searched spectrum cable channels up and down. I think fifa messed up this time around planning three finals on the same day, how dumb.
In the US, the game will be shown on ESPN+ and Telemundo.

Offline soccerman

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #819 on: July 07, 2019, 02:54:20 PM »
Where can I watch the finals? there are no channels carrying the finals and I’ve searched spectrum cable channels up and down. I think fifa messed up this time around planning three finals on the same day, how dumb.
In the US, the game will be shown on ESPN+ and Telemundo.
:beermug: clean forgot about Telemundo

Offline soccerman

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #820 on: July 07, 2019, 02:55:24 PM »
Honestly, that is a bullshit red card.
Very soft.

But, Gary Medel being Gary Medel. However, I'm not sure Messi has been himself lately.
Maybe the pressure is getting to him

Offline Deeks

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #821 on: July 07, 2019, 04:43:09 PM »
Honestly, that is a bullshit red card.
Very soft.

But, Gary Medel being Gary Medel. However, I'm not sure Messi has been himself lately.
Maybe the pressure is getting to him

Maybe, But I would have reacted the same way. The rest of the Arg. team needs to step up.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #822 on: July 29, 2019, 10:59:35 AM »
Honestly, that is a bullshit red card.
Very soft.

But, Gary Medel being Gary Medel. However, I'm not sure Messi has been himself lately.

A week after I posted these comments, Jorge Valdano wrote an article entitled "Dos nuevos Messi" or "Two new Messis" in which he commented about things he observed during the Copa America, about Messi and otherwise. Valdano confirms that we witnessed a change.

Quote
"También fuimos testigos de la transformación de ese icono que es Messi, que se comportó como nunca dentro y fuera del campo. Dentro, porque jugó a un nivel terrenal, lo que contradijo, al menos durante el rato que duró la Copa, su condición de genio. Fuera, porque vimos a una persona diferente. Comprometido como nunca, y eso está bien, pero alejado de ese bajo perfil que siempre he admirado. Cayendo en provocaciones, como la que le costó la expulsión; haciendo declaraciones graves, como la de acusar de "corrupta" a la Commebol; o tomando decisiones impropias de un capitán como la de negarse a recibir el premio por el tercer puesto. Siempre me fascinó el Messi jugador, y admiro la capacidad de tener bajo control su fama mundial tanto como la valentía de desafiar las presiones sin sobreactuar. Argentina parece feliz con esta nueva versión. Yo, solo en parte."

https://elpais.com/deportes/2019/07/12/actualidad/1562947034_663774.html

I'll leave it for the curious to seek out a translation, but Valdano is not entirely thrilled with the other Messi ... the "new Messi".

That aside, the real interesting part of the article is Valdano's first paragraph in which he mentions that there was a time when certain segments of "polite society" rejected football and wouldn't dare to mention it and that today things have changed and football is chic, trendy or fashionable to the point that the composition of who the fans are has changed as has the behaviour on display. (He didn't mention ticket cost, but that might have something to do with non-democratic pricing.)

He notes:

Quote
En la Copa América vimos un público absurdamente blanco para un país que tiene como un tesoro la diversidad racial. Donde antes veíamos a un hincha de pie, ahora hay uno sentado con una copa de champán en la mano que solo se levanta para festejar un gol o para aplaudir a Bolsonaro en la entrega de premios.

Literal Google translation: In the Copa América we saw an absurdly white audience for a country that has racial diversity as a treasure. Where we used to see a fan standing, now there is one sitting with a glass of champagne in his hand that only stands up to celebrate a goal or to applaud Bolsonaro (President of Brazil) in the awards ceremony.





« Last Edit: July 29, 2019, 11:46:29 AM by asylumseeker »

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #823 on: July 29, 2019, 11:53:06 AM »
About Valdano, if you're not familiar with him.

Quote
Many who didn’t see him play will wonder how good a striker Valdano actually was. The simple answer? He was better than Gonzalo Higuaín.  :)

https://thesefootballtimes.co/2017/03/26/jorge-valdano-the-career-of-footballs-grand-philosopher/


Quote
I once had a conversation with Carlos Bilardo before a match at the 1986 World Cup finals: “What are you doing reading?” he said. “I need it to relax,” I replied. “You don’t need to relax,” he said. “But I get too nervous otherwise,” I said. “You have to be nervous,” he said. “But I’ll go mad,” I said. “You have to go mad” he said. Bilardo felt that to take away some of the madness from fooball was tantamount to taking away the due attention it deserved. But for me it was a necessity to read, precisely because I lived football with such obsession so I needed to bring down the level of tension and enter other lives, other times, other worlds.

...

When I moved to Spain my vision of football was transformed by Manuel Vazquez Montalban. I’ve always thought of football as being deeply engrained in life, but I would never have been able to discuss it without his influence. I started writing while at Real Madrid. One Easter, the Spanish newspaper El Pais published a short story of mine, which I had written while travelling with the team to a European Cup match against Bayern Munich. Intellectual magazine Occidente then published my essay Stage Fright. No footballer had ever published in that magazine before, and so I became the bearded woman of the circus. In a sense: every player needs to be identified and, well, I became known as The Intellectual. My book, Dreams of Football, was published while I was at Tenerife and sold very well. The publisher then invited me to edit a selection of intellectuals’ views on football.

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/features/jorge-valdano-my-secret-vice



Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #824 on: July 29, 2019, 12:11:41 PM »
The sage of Real Madrid
Simon Kuper, The Financial Times


Jorge Valdano is explaining what Real Madrid is about – a question he’s better equipped to answer than perhaps anyone else – and the club’s director of football reaches into the past, to talk about a fellow Argentine-turned-Madrileño.

“You could say Alfredo di Stéfano incarnates Real,”says Valdano. Di Stéfano was the linchpin of the great Real that won the first five European Cups, from 1956 to 1960. Valdano explains: “After a defeat it was best not to look at Alfredo, because his eyes would be spitting fire. When things went badly, he’d forget about beauty and just pursue the result. Everything that has happened at this club has been influenced by Di Stéfano’s spirit. This is a club with a very bad relationship to defeat.”

Valdano is speaking as Real’s director of football, as a former player and coach of the club, but also as a gifted writer. Almost nobody can talk football better than he does. Ask him a question and he pauses a beat, before answering in complete sentences in his precise, Argentine-inflected Spanish.

We’re sitting in Real’s offices inside the Bernabéu stadium one evening, an hour before a game. On one wall hangs a black-and-white picture of Di Stéfano’s team. It shows the players standing in open-topped cars, driving through Madrid amid cheering crowds. Franco’s policemen accompany them on motorbikes. The photo is Real triumphant – the club’s natural state. But in Valdano’s four spells here since he first arrived as a player, in 1984, Real mostly hasn’t been like that.

There is something dysfunctional about post-Franco Real, and Valdano’s time in Madrid helps illuminate what. The club has struggled to redefine its identity and regain the dominance it had in Di Stéfano’s era. Its present failure is baffling. In football, money brings success, and Real is the world’s richest club: it turned over €401m in the 2008-09 season. Yet it regularly gets thrashed by the world’s best team, its eternal rival Barcelona. Real had better hurry up and win something soon – ideally the Champions League in London this May – for Valdano’s sake and its own.



To the left, to the right

Valdano was born in 1955 in a small town in what was then the wealthy Argentine pampas. He grew tall and strong, and turned out to be good at everything, the man other men wanted to be. He devoured Jorge Luis Borges, briefly studied law, dressed as elegantly as he spoke, became a goal-scoring striker and in 1975 arrived in Spain to play for little Deportivo Alavés. Franco died that year, and so Valdano found himself a young, leftwing intellectual in a free country just as young, leftwing intellectuals in Argentina were being dropped from military helicopters into the River Plate. This shaped his thinking about football.

He admired the César Luis Menotti, the coach who brought Argentina its first World Cup in 1978. Menotti believed in “a football of the left”: a creative game in which working-class people expressed their natural genius. By contrast, “football of the right” was the thuggish game played by certain Argentine clubs, whose players read up on their opponents’ personal problems so as to unsettle them, just in case biting and spitting failed. Valdano, a subtle, funny man, only partly bought this spiel, but his books describe a Menottista football.

The zenith of Valdano’s playing career was winning the World Cup with Argentina in 1986. He scored in the final, and, just as thrillingly, got to observe his teammate Diego Maradona from up close. Indeed, while Maradona was dribbling through the England side to score football’s most famous goal in the quarter-final, Valdano was running alongside him hoping for a pass. In the changing-room afterwards, he teased Maradona: why hadn’t he passed? Yes, Maradona replied, I was watching you all along, and wanted to pass, but the English kept getting in the way, and suddenly I’d beaten them all so I just scored.

Valdano was awed: “While scoring this goal you were also watching me? Old man, you insult me. It isn’t possible.” Valdano with Maradona – as in most of his relationships in football – was a literate, educated person landed among aliens. Other footballers often mock him as a pseud, and call him El Filósofo, “The Philosopher”, a nickname that’s intended as an insult. Valdano never hides his bookishness. He just doesn’t think it’s very relevant. “I’m convinced that I can describe Maradona’s goal much better than he ever could,” he once told me, “but I could never have scored it.”

This evening in Madrid’s offices we get talking about world cups. Several of Real’s players pocketed one with Spain last year. Had that reminded him of his own triumph? “It seems pornographic to me that 25 years have passed, because I recall every detail precisely. But when the Spanish players were given their medals, my daughter asked, ‘Where’s your medal?’ Eventually my wife found it. It’s now in a place where I can’t get to it, ha ha.” Still, he insists he hardly ever thinks about lifting the cup.

A year after that, hepatitis forced him to retire from playing. He became a writer, and a coach, and in 1994 returned to coach a Real that was going through dark times. The club hadn’t won its pet prize, the European Cup, since 1966. Worse, in 1992 Barcelona had won the trophy at last. Catalans had begun mocking Madrileños for only winning the cup “in black and white”.

In fact, Spanish football was experiencing the same shift in power as Spanish politics: from the centre to the regions. Under Franco, Real had ruled unchallenged. It’s a nonsense to call Real “a fascist club”, as its detractors sometimes do. Yet Real did benefit from the football-loving Franco. It’s not that he fixed referees or gave Real money. He didn’t need to. A dictator typically concentrates his country’s resources in the capital city. That’s where he, his bureaucrats, generals and secret policemen live. It’s the last place where he wants an uprising. And so capitals and their football teams thrive under dictatorships. Every team from a dictatorship ever to win the European Cup (now called the Champions League) came from a capital. By contrast, winning teams from democracies almost all come from provincial towns and cities.

After Franco died, Spain’s regions rose. Barcelona in particular grew richer, and its football team improved. Real’s decline fed the daily hysteria at the Bernabéu. Several Spanish newspapers and TV stations live off Real. “This club moves amid great turbulence. It’s a universal focus of news,” says Valdano. He tries to remain ironic while everyone else loses their heads. When a journalist placed two tape recorders in front of him before a recent interview, Valdano commented: “Ah! One to record my words, the other to record my thoughts.”

But the hysteria at Real is often all-conquering. The club’s unique, inherited obligation is to rule Europe with the world’s best footballers playing attacking football. When Real stopped meeting this obligation, it got caught in a cycle of hubris and despair. The club’s president would hire a coach, buy new players, say that this at last was the perfect team, as good as Di Stéfano’s, and after three defeats he’d chuck everyone out and start again. Valdano himself was sacked months after leading Real to the Spanish title in his only full season as coach.

At Real, the coach acts as human sacrifice.

Real’s wealth did eventually buy more titles: the Champions League in 1998 (immediately after which the coach was sacked) and 2000. Uefa, the European football association, named Real club of the century. And in summer 2000, the Madrileño construction magnate Florentino Pérez was elected the club’s president with a mission to restore the glory days of Di Stéfano. Pérez made Valdano his technical director, in charge of signing players. After a hiatus, when Pérez was voted out of office in 2006, the two men returned to power in 2009. They are still chasing Di Stéfano’s legacy, watched from the stands by the impatient octogenarian.

Pérez’s big idea was to buy galacticos, the world’s greatest players. Di Stéfano’s team, too, had been full of galacticos. Santiago Segurola, a Spanish writer on football and buddy of Valdano’s, has a theory on this. In 1951, when Pérez was four, he began going with his father to the Bernabéu. Pérez loved his dad. He came to associate him with that 1950s team. And so, explains Segurola, Pérez developed a Freudian relationship with Real. By trying to recreate the team of the 1950s – now with Cristiano Ronaldo as Di Stéfano – he is communing with his father. Above Pérez’s bed (witnessed there by the author John Carlin) hangs a photograph of Pérez posing on the Bernabéu grass among four of his galacticos. As the psychiatrist in Fawlty Towers says of Basil Fawlty: “There’s enough material there for an entire conference.”

In name, Valdano was Real’s technical director, but he often seemed more spokesman than policymaker. His job was to turn Pérez’s actions into beautiful words. This was probably frustrating, but everyone in football wants to stay on the boat, especially at Real, and so they do what’s required. In 2003 I sat in these offices listening to Valdano tell me Real would henceforth field only galacticos and homegrown players. In his fine phrase, Real wouldn’t sign “middle-class footballers”.

In 2002, Real won its ninth Champions League. After that, Pérez’s galacticos stopped producing: too many chiefs, almost no Indians. From 2004 to 2006 Real won nothing. Valdano admits that, “We lacked players of, let’s say, the middle class. This time, as well as Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka, you need players like Xabi Alonso. Guys who might not look spectacular, but who can read a match; who can destroy a counter-attack by taking one step left or right.”

While Pérez was out of office, in 2007 and 2008, Real won two Spanish titles. Pérez and Valdano returned for the 2009-10 season, and again won nothing. Under Pérez, Real have spent several hundred million euros on transfers, probably more than any other club, and sacrificed several coaches. The club’s debt was €504m in 2008, and surely more now. Meanwhile, today’s Barcelona may be the best football team ever, better than Di Stéfano’s Real. Valdano will admit that “it’s the strongest Barcelona in history”. Isn’t their beautiful game – invented by Valdano’s hero, Johan Cruyff – the football he has always dreamed of? “No,” he smiles. “I’m from South America, not from Europe. For me, Brazil of 1970 was the platonic dream of football.”

Still, doesn’t Barcelona benefit from a fixed style? That gives the club a stability that Real lacks. Valdano interrupts: “The leader of Barcelona is the style of play. Heading Barça now is a person who takes the respect for this culture to the point of exaggeration: Pep Guardiola [the current coach]. In Madrid it was always different. At Real there is an enormous passion for triumph. Here, there’s an admiration for the player who gives everything. That’s why a player like Angel di Maria has had such rapid success [at Real]. And there’s also a desire for spectacle. In Barcelona that order is reversed: first the play, then the result.”

I once witnessed Real’s “enormous passion for triumph” up-close in Valdano himself. Real had just lost away to Milan in the Champions League. The defeat didn’t matter much – Real eventually progressed to the next round anyway. When I passed Valdano on the staircase leaving the stands of the San Siro, I said a cheery hello. He glared at me, “eyes spitting fire”, as he had described Alfredo di Stéfano in defeat, and strode off. The usual courteous Filósofo had vanished. Like Real Madrid, Valdano has a bad relationship with defeat.

That’s why, last spring, the club hired the ultimate winning coach: José Mourinho. Unfortunately, in 2007, Valdano had described the defensive football played by Mourinho’s Chelsea as “a shit on a stick”. When Valdano unveiled the Portuguese to the media, he admitted to having previously been “aggressive” about Mourinho’s style. Now Valdano, Pérez and Mourinho form an uneasy trinity.

Some companies get so obsessed with their internal processes that they lose sight of outcomes. In appointing Mourinho, Real showed that it’s so obsessed with outcomes it barely cares about processes. So why did Valdano appoint his ideological opposite? He says, “My idea of football is expressed in five books, and in the teams I coached at Tenerife, Real Madrid and Valencia. All my teams had the same style. But in my current position, I interpret Real Madrid – not my own ideas. And Real now, with our reorganisation of the team, needed a very strong leadership, and nobody represented that better than Mourinho.

“In two years we have replaced almost the entire team. Now our side has an average age of 24. Marcelo is 22, Özil is 22, Khedira is 23. It’s a team with a lot of future.” The youngsters have mostly played well under Mourinho, leaving aside last November’s 5-0 thrashing by Barcelona. How has Mourinho changed Real? “We haven’t yet lost a point because the players weren’t trying hard enough,” Valdano says. “Mustn’t that have something to do with the coach’s personality? His way of working, with very clear ideas, is well suited to players today. As a player I liked to have more liberty than obligations. Today they apparently prefer more obligations than liberty. They seem comfortable with a demanding coach who imposes a regime on them. We do have personalities here. We have Iker Casillas, captain of the world champions. We have players of great intelligence, like Xabi Alonso. And Cristiano Ronaldo, with his tremendous character. But I think these players – and this club – needed a coach with these characteristics.”

Is the Mourinho he sees the braggart the rest of us watch from afar? “No! In the media’s perception of great players and coaches, there is often a colossal misunderstanding. The Mourinho you see from a distance would not have the support of all his players. Almost nobody who has worked under his discipline speaks badly of Mourinho. I’ve seen the same thing with many players, like Raúl: great footballers who are nonetheless great unknowns. That’s incredible in this society of the image.”

Actually, admits Valdano, even he now struggles to fully understand the players. “Twenty-five years ago, the contact between club and player was very direct. Now there are many layers between club and player. Sometimes your interlocutor is still the player himself; sometimes the interlocutor is the player’s father, his agent, communications director, or his girlfriend. The complexity has increased.”

One thing hasn’t changed: Real’s “enormous passion for triumph”. The club is just two points behind Barcelona in the Spanish league. Next month it faces Olympique Lyon in the second round of the Champions League, hunting its 10th European title, “la décima”. Valdano promises: “When Barcelona awakens from its dream, el Madrid will be there, to occupy the place it’s always had in football’s history.”

Well, possibly.

Offline Flex

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #825 on: March 17, 2020, 04:35:03 PM »
Copa America postponed from 2020 to 2021
AFP Relax News


The Copa America due to kick off in June in Argentina and Colombia was on Tuesday postponed by a year to 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic, organisers CONMEBOL said.

The announcement came shortly after UEFA's similar decision to also push back Euro 2020 by 12 months.

The Copa is South America's main continental competition between national sides and had been scheduled to run between June 12-July 12.

The competition was being staged for the first time in two countries rather than one.

The finals featuring 12 teams, for this edition included invitees Australia and Qatar.

"It's an extraordinary measure due to an unexpected situation, and therefore responds to the fundamental need to avoid an exponential evolution of the virus," said CONMEBOL.

The tournament is now rescheduled to run from June 11-July 11 2021.

The decision was taken in conjunction with UEFA's decision to postpone Euro 2020 to 2021.

"We also thank UEFA and its president Aleksander Ceferin for working together and the co-ordinated decision to also postpone the 2020 Euros for the betterment of the whole football family," added CONMEBOL.

The South American governing body had decided to align the Copa, which mostly used to be played in odd years, to the Euros in order to reduce the impact on European clubs, where a large number of South American international players ply their trade.

Club football all over the world has been suspended due to the coronavirus leaving teams and leagues sweating on whether they will be able to finish the current season.

Many governments have imposed travel restrictions, bans on sports events and even total lockdowns on their populations' movements.

According to the latest figures more than 180,000 people worldwide have been affected by the coronavirus outbreak with 7,400 people dying from the COVID-19 disease.

The suspension of the Copa and Euros increases the chances of domestic leagues being brought to a conclusion, as long as such social limitations are lifted in the coming weeks or months.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Deeks

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #826 on: May 30, 2021, 11:28:26 PM »
Even Copa America in doubt.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/soccer-conmebol-suspends-copa-america-021320392.html

Daniela Desantis
Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:13 PM
By Daniela Desantis

ASUNCION (Reuters) -The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) said on Sunday that Argentina would no longer host the Copa America, throwing the troubled tournament into doubt just 13 days before it was due to kick off.

The tournament, featuring 10 South American nations, had been due to be held in Argentina and Colombia between June 13 and July 10, the first time in its 105-year history with joint hosts.

However, Colombia was removed as co-host on May 20 after a wave of protests demanding social and economic change spread across the country and Argentina has now followed due to what CONMEBOL said was the "present circumstances".

Daniela Desantis
Sun, May 30, 2021, 10:13 PM
By Daniela Desantis

ASUNCION (Reuters) -The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) said on Sunday that Argentina would no longer host the Copa America, throwing the troubled tournament into doubt just 13 days before it was due to kick off.

The tournament, featuring 10 South American nations, had been due to be held in Argentina and Colombia between June 13 and July 10, the first time in its 105-year history with joint hosts.

However, Colombia was removed as co-host on May 20 after a wave of protests demanding social and economic change spread across the country and Argentina has now followed due to what CONMEBOL said was the "present circumstances".

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CONMEBOL did not disclose the nature of the circumstances that led to the decision but Argentina is currently experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases.

"CONMEBOL is analysing offers from other countries that have shown interest in hosting the continental tournament," it said in a short statement. "Updates will be announced soon."

Officials from the organisation will meet on Monday to decide on the next steps for the tournament, which was held over from 2020 due to the pandemic.

Sunday's stunning decision was announced shortly before 11 p.m. in Argentina at the end of a weekend in which opposition to the tournament grew both inside and outside the government.

Argentina saw COVID-19 cases grow quickly in May and prompted the government to mandate a strict new lockdown.

Thursday saw a record one-day number of new cases and the overall death toll had hit 76,693 by the weekend, according to data from the World Health Organisation.

Even some players who had returned to South America to prepare for the tournament expressed doubts, with Luis Suarez of Uruguay telling reporters on Friday, ”we have to give priority to the health of human beings".

Gonzalo Belloso, CONMEBOL’s secretary general, said last week the organisation had spoken to Chilean officials with a view to perhaps hosting some matches there.

Organisers are reluctant to call the tournament off because of its importance financially. The last Copa America, held in Brazil in 2019, brought in $118 million and was the second biggest annual source of revenue after the Copa Libertadores, the equivalent of Europe's Champions League.

This year each competing nation is to receive a minimum of $4 million, with the winner receiving an additional $10 million, CONMEBOL said.

CONMEBOL’s reputation has taken a battering in recent years, with the organisation forced to move the second leg of the 2018 Copa Libertadores final to Madrid due to fan violence in Buenos Aires.

(Reporting by Daniela Desantis in Asuncion and Andrew Downie in London; writing by Andrew Downie in London; Editing by Christian Schmollinger/Peter Rutherford)

Offline ffisback

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #827 on: May 31, 2021, 01:57:41 AM »
This year is a write off they should move the Olympic games to 2022 and the world cup to 2023

Offline Deeks

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #828 on: May 31, 2021, 06:07:36 AM »
This year is a write off they should move the Olympic games to 2022 and the world cup to 2023

Say that quietly boy, them money men doh  like that kinda talk.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2021, 06:36:21 AM by Deeks »

Offline Flex

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #829 on: May 31, 2021, 12:09:41 PM »
Copa America 2021: Brazil new hosts as tournament moved from Argentina, Colombia
By Adriana Garcia
ESPN


CONMEBOL named Brazil as the host nation of the 47th Copa America on Monday.

The decision was made less than 24 hours after South America's football governing body announced Argentina would no longer stage the event that is due to start on June 13 and last until July 10.

A CONMEBOL statement read: "The CONMEBOL @CopaAmerica 2021 will be played in Brazil! Tournament start and end dates are confirmed. The venues and the fixture will be informed by CONMEBOL in the next few hours. The oldest national team tournament in the world will thrill the entire continent!"

CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez said it was a unanimous decision that the council took to have Brazil as the host nation. He also thanked original co-hosts Argentina and Colombia and stated that opportunities will come along for the two countries to stage events in the future.

Brazil are the holders of the competition, having won it on home soil in 2019.

CONMEBOL cited "the present circumstances" as the reason for Argentina's withdrawal as hosts, with the country having experienced an increase in COVID-19 cases. There were 348 deaths reported on Sunday and 21,346 new infections.

CONMEBOL, reluctant to cancel the tournament for a second straight year after the 2020 event was not held due to the pandemic, acted quickly with less than two weeks to go before the start of the competition.

The tournament involving 10 South American countries, was originally set to be staged by Argentina and Colombia, the first time in its 105-year history to have joint hosts.

Colombia had a request to have the tournament postponed rejected by CONMEBOL and pulled out as co-hosts on May 20 due to social and economic unrest in the nation.

Lionel Messi's Argentina are scheduled to open the tournament against Chile on June 13, while Brazil begin their title defence against Venezuela one day later.

South American teams are also preparing for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers that were originally scheduled to be played in March but were postponed because of coronavirus travel restrictions.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline ffisback

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #830 on: May 31, 2021, 05:17:02 PM »
Copa America 2021: Brazil new hosts as tournament moved from Argentina, Colombia
By Adriana Garcia
ESPN


CONMEBOL named Brazil as the host nation of the 47th Copa America on Monday.

The decision was made less than 24 hours after South America's football governing body announced Argentina would no longer stage the event that is due to start on June 13 and last until July 10.

A CONMEBOL statement read: "The CONMEBOL @CopaAmerica 2021 will be played in Brazil! Tournament start and end dates are confirmed. The venues and the fixture will be informed by CONMEBOL in the next few hours. The oldest national team tournament in the world will thrill the entire continent!"

CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez said it was a unanimous decision that the council took to have Brazil as the host nation. He also thanked original co-hosts Argentina and Colombia and stated that opportunities will come along for the two countries to stage events in the future.

Brazil are the holders of the competition, having won it on home soil in 2019.

CONMEBOL cited "the present circumstances" as the reason for Argentina's withdrawal as hosts, with the country having experienced an increase in COVID-19 cases. There were 348 deaths reported on Sunday and 21,346 new infections.

CONMEBOL, reluctant to cancel the tournament for a second straight year after the 2020 event was not held due to the pandemic, acted quickly with less than two weeks to go before the start of the competition.

The tournament involving 10 South American countries, was originally set to be staged by Argentina and Colombia, the first time in its 105-year history to have joint hosts.

Colombia had a request to have the tournament postponed rejected by CONMEBOL and pulled out as co-hosts on May 20 due to social and economic unrest in the nation.

Lionel Messi's Argentina are scheduled to open the tournament against Chile on June 13, while Brazil begin their title defence against Venezuela one day later.

South American teams are also preparing for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers that were originally scheduled to be played in March but were postponed because of coronavirus travel restrictions.


Who in there right mind is going to go to Brazil at this time.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #831 on: June 01, 2021, 10:36:15 AM »
CONMEBOL is managing two major tournaments aside from the Copa America. As far as COVID, only 0.7% of players contracted COVID during 254 matches. Not shabby. Plus CONMEBOL has been ensuring that all footballers across the continent are vaccinated. They secured 50,000 Sinovac. The indictment of CONMEBOL regarding reputation is overstated.

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #832 on: July 08, 2021, 04:21:05 AM »
Copa America 2021: All the records that Lionel Messi can break in the final against Brazil
WRITTEN BY RITABRATA BANERJEE


Lionel Messi has been the star performer for Argentina in the ongoing Copa America 2021 with four goals and five assists already to his name.

The former FC Barcelona captain has been directly involved in nine out of the 11 goals La Albiceleste has scored so far in the tournament. Out of the four goals he scored, two came from free-kicks. He also appeared in his 150th international match for Argentina in the semifinal against Colombia on Wednesday morning.

The superstar has created a few records in the ongoing tournament like becoming the most capped Argentine player of all time and he is in line to create a few more records in the final of the tournament.

First, let's take a look at all records Messi has broken already in this tournament.

What are the records Messi has already broken at the Copa America?

1) Most appearances for Argentina
In the ongoing Copa America, Lionel Messi surpassed his former FC Barcelona and Argentina teammate Javier Mascherano's tally of most appearances for La Albiceleste (147). At the beginning of the competition, Messi had 144 international caps to his name and after Argentina's final group stage match against Bolivia, the superstar became the most-capped Argentine player of all time. He currently has 150 international caps.

2) First Argentine to feature at six Copa Americas
With his participation at the Copa America 2021, Lionel Messi became the first Argentina international to play in six editions of the tournament (2007-2021). The Barcelona skipper surpassed Javier Mascherano's record of playing in five Copa Americas.

3) Most assists provided in a single tournament
With five assists in six matches in the ongoing Copa America 2021, Lionel Messi scripted the record of providing the most number of assists in one edition of Copa America.

What are the records Messi can break or touch in the Copa America 2021 final?

1) Joint-most appearances in Copa America
With an appearance in the final of the Copa America 2021 against Brazil, Messi will touch Chile's Sergio Livingstone's record of playing 34 matches in the tournament. Before the start of the tournament, the Barcelona legend had 27 appearances, one more than Mascherano.

2) Most goals in Copa America
With four goals in six matches in the ongoing Copa America 2021, Messi has scored 13 goals in six editions of the tournament. He is four goals short of touching Zizinho (Brazil) and Norberto Mendez's (Argentina) tally of 17 goals, the most by any player in the competition.

« Last Edit: July 08, 2021, 04:24:34 AM by Flex »
The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Deeks

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #833 on: July 08, 2021, 08:53:31 AM »
Has Messi ever won the Copa America with Argentina.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #834 on: July 08, 2021, 10:25:33 AM »
Has Messi ever won the Copa America with Argentina.

The last time Argentina won the Copa America Messi wasn't known across the globe (he was a 6 year old). And it was their last title of significance. Simeone was playing still.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2021, 10:31:24 AM by asylumseeker »

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #835 on: July 08, 2021, 10:33:04 AM »
Has Messi ever won the Copa America with Argentina.

The last time Argentina won the Copa America Messi wasn't known across the globe (he was a 6 year old). And it was their last title of significance. Simeone was playing still.

In all those years he hasn't made a damn difference.  :devil:

Offline Cocorite

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #836 on: July 08, 2021, 10:47:35 AM »
Has Messi ever won the Copa America with Argentina.

The last time Argentina won the Copa America Messi wasn't known across the globe (he was a 6 year old). And it was their last title of significance. Simeone was playing still.

In all those years he hasn't made a damn difference.  :devil:
What a waste ah time.  ;D
Socawarriors Need A Winning Mentality

Offline Deeks

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #837 on: July 08, 2021, 12:44:37 PM »
Has Messi ever won the Copa America with Argentina.

The last time Argentina won the Copa America Messi wasn't known across the globe (he was a 6 year old). And it was their last title of significance. Simeone was playing still.

In all those years he hasn't made a damn difference.  :devil:
What a waste ah time.  ;D

Gosh boy, allyuh cruel!!!

Offline soccerman

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #838 on: July 10, 2021, 09:18:44 AM »
L. Diaz of Colombia will probably be the player of the tournament. Not sure what club he plays for but his stock certainly went up! Some fascinating goals including last nights winner over Peru in the dying seconds.

Offline Peong

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Re: Copa America Thread
« Reply #839 on: July 10, 2021, 10:37:24 AM »
I backing Brazil to take it. They have a much better squad but Arg have Messi. If Neymar could put aside his greed Brazil can score a few. It does be so painful watching him try to force the goal. When yuh draw 2, 3 players pass the ball.

 

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