In a scintillating if overly rough 2019 Copa America semifinal, at the infamous Estadio Mineirão in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the host national team defeated their Argentine counterparts 2-0. The match, which began with Gabriel Jesus and Dani Alves being fouled roughly multiple times by Leandro Paredes and Marcos Acuna respectively, eventually settled into a more controlled, if still heated match thanks to the officiating performance of Ecuadorian referee Roddy Zambrano.
Weary of the Argentine penchant for outrageous fouling followed by cynical rolling and incessant complaining whenever the favor was returned, Zambrano mostly kept the event from boiling over by giving multiple yellows, including to Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni, and by not buying into any of the playacting. The Argentines were particularly incensed by the lack of a penalty call on a foul on Lionel Messi, which multiple replays showed occurred yards outside the box despite the diminutive Argentine’s awkward dive/slide into the box. He, of course, was not sanctioned for the Olympic quality dive as has been the case with the protected best player in the world for most of the Copa America.
Unfortunately, a clearly frustrated Messi could not accept the obvious fact that his team was again outplayed at another major international competition, despite the fact that the Argentines needed to beat lowly Qatar—and get help from Colombia who had previously beat them by the same score as the Brazilians, just over two weeks ago—to progress form the group stage. So he sounded off to all media outlets within earshot, curse words included.
Jesus at the 19th minute and Roberto Firmino at the 71st completed the game’s only scoring, and Alisson kept his fifth consecutive clean sheet of the Copa America tourney. But the star of the match was Alves, who assisted on the critical first goal and mostly kept his cool (a yellow for his head to head argument with Acuna notwithstanding), while controlling the right side of Brazil’s defense and spearheading attacks on his wing. His confidence on the ball and ability to weather his portion of the fouling storm, infected his younger teammates and set the tone for his team’s eventual success.
But two other telling facts of the Brazilian win also stood out: the fact that the match was tightly contested and technically well played by both teams with Argentina also having multiple opportunities to score, and the fact that the hosts did not seem to miss their superstar Neymar, who watched the match from the luxury boxes. Fans from both sides got their money’s worth as most players did bring their A-games.
Today, Peru and Chile will contest for the last place in the final of the 2019 Copa America. If Chile wins, they will be competing in their third consecutive Copa America final—having won the previous two over the same Messi-led side. Next year, the same two-time champion team has the chance of making further history by making it to their fourth consecutive final in the Argentina-Colombia hosted Copa America 2020. At that time, as was the case in the 1978 World Cup, it will be interesting to see how the potential officiating and/or game fixing are rated by the hosts, and in particular by their lead player.
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