Crazy Weekend In Copa America

Things didn’t exactly go as expected over the weekend in Copa America. Brazil, Argentina and Chile were the three favourites to win the tournament on Friday, now Uruguay are leading the way. That says a lot.

Let’e go through things briefly game by game because it really was quite extraordinary.

Firstly, those in Colombia Copa America shirts crashed out 2-0 to the tournament’s surprise package, Peru. The game was goalless going into extra-time, but goals from Carlos Lobatón and Juan Vargas sent Peru through.

If people thought this was a shock though, they would have been amazed with what was to come in the next two games. Both Argentina and Brazil were knocked out of the competition.

First, Argentina lost out 5-4 on penalties to Uruguay. The game was 1-1 after 120 minutes of football and when it came to the shoot-out, it was Carlos Tevez that missed the crucial penalty as the hosts crashed out.

The next day saw Brazil suffer the same fate. After a goalless draw against Parguay, they too were forced into a penalty shoot-out before embarrassing themselves with not one, not two, not three, but FOUR penalty misses as their opponents ran out 2-0 winners.

This wasn’t the end of the shocks either. With the two big guns failing to make the last four, Chile would have seen a much clearer path to the final, but they too lost against the odds.

Venezuela secured a 2-1 win thanks to Gabriel Cichero’s striker in the 80th minute of the match. This followed a dramatic game where both teams had a player sent-off.

The tournament really did come to life over the weekend and with two semi-finals and final to come, there is still plenty more to look forward to.