Copa America Opening Round Thoughts

Wow. Basically all 4 matches have been surprises of various levels, and the footy has been pretty good thusfar. Entertaining, too, with 14 goals scored in the first 4 matches for an average of 3.5 goals per match.

Yesterday things licked off in Grupo A with Peru shocking favored Uruguay 3-0. Uruguay are many people's pick as most likely to challenge the top two of Argentina & Brasil, but mostly crappy for the last several years Peru up and shocked them.

Uruguay 0-3 Peru highlights.

The nightcap was entertaining before a ball was even kicked, as hosts Venezuela played Bolivia. Venezuela are hosting Copa America for the first time in the 91 year history of the competition, and Hugo Chavez spent about 1 billion US Dollars on 2 new stadiums, stadium renovations, and infrastructure upgrades, and sees this as a chance to showcase his country to his continent and the world. Always one to grab the spotlight, he successfully turned the pregame of this match into a freaking circus. After the teams came out and lined up, he came out on the field in a Venezuela warm up suit and shook hands with each and every player in the middle of the field. Why do this in the locker room beforehand when you can turn the match into a spectacle and make it all about you? I was already chuckling at the great showman, but he hadn't even gotten started yet. He then went over to the referees, shook each one of their hands, chatted and joked with them. I'm thinking, OK, can we please start the match now? The answer was no. He brought out none other than Diego Armando Maradona to midfield, and started having a little kickabout with him, and Bolivian President Evo Morales came out to join in the festivities. It was an awesome circus- never seen anything quite like it, not even in a World Cup. Once we were all well aware that this was all about Hugo, the field was finally cleared and the match was finally allowed to begin, and after the prematch sideshow the match was almost anticlimactic.

The match? Oh, right. Venezuela were expected to win over little Bolivia, who are strong at home playing at their massive elevation but pretty terrible when they come down from upon high, and they went up 1-0 as expected. But Bolivia equalized and it was 1-1 at half. As the 2nd half dragged on you got the feeling that Chavez was fidgeting in his seat and would be embarrassed by only a draw. Finally Venezuela scored to go up 2-1, and it looked like that is how it would end up. But Bolivia had other plans, and they equalized in the last 5 minutes and it finished 2-2: a very good result for Bolivia and surely a disappointment for Venezuela and especially Hugo.

Venezuela 2-2 Bolivia highlights.

Tonight Ecuador played Chile in the opening match. Ecuador made it to the knockout phase of last summer's World Cup {and gave Engerland all they wanted as well before losing 1-0} and Chile have been pretty crap in recent times, so when Ecuador took a 2-1 lead into the final 10 minutes all was going to form. But then Chile scored to make it 2-2, and then got a close to the final whistle winner on a stunning free kick to stun Ecuador 3-2. Good stuff.

Chile 3-2 Ecuador highlights.

The biggest surprise of all, however, came in the marquee nightcap matchup pitting Brasil against Mexico. Brasil are 2nd favorites, and even without Ronaldinho and Kaka they have Robinho, Diego, Alex, and Dani Alves, all successful European based players. Mexico are fresh off a Gold Cup run all the way to the final and have played 6 matches in the last 3 weeks. Unlike the US, they sent basically the same team to compete in the Copa, so not only is Brasil better than them on paper, but they come in far from fresh.

Well no one told Mexico that, and Brasil did them an addition favor by doing what they occasionally do in international tournaments: think "shit, we're Brasil, all we have to do is show up in order to win."

Oops. Brasil sleptwalked {sleepwalked?} through a first half, and although they were unfortunate to have a would-be opening goal ruled out wrongly for offsides, they were outplayed by El Tri. Mexico's first goal was great, with all the focus on Castillo's great moves and finish, but the pass to him was absolutely perfect and the goal could not have happened at all without it. 1-0 to Mexico after 25 minutes. 5 minutes later it was 2-0, thanks to Brasilian goalkeeper Doni completely losing his mind on a pretty good Morales free kick and deciding that it would be a better idea to freeze then stand and watch the ball go into the net when he most likely could have saved it had he just, ummm, dived and knocked it away. Bizarre, but no different than the poor play from Brasil, who repeatedly gave the ball away with poor passing and overall imprecise play.

The second half Brasil had much better scoring opportunities, but man of the match Mexican goalkeeper Ochoa was in the zone and made several great saves. Although Brasil did better, they still were extremely careless with the ball and gave it away another dozen or so times just with terrible passing when under no pressure, and Robinho and Wagner Love tried too may times to dribble through the entire Mexican defense and do it all themselves instead of passing the ball.

Oh, speaking of Wanger Love: I have seen him play 5 times this year {2 Arsenal-CSKA Moscow CL matches, Brasil-Argentina & Brasil-England friendlies, and tonight} and I must say I am not impressed; he just doesn't look good enough to me to lead a Brasilian striker line to me. But forget that, the coolest thing is they way that the Univision play by play guy says his name. Every single time he mentions Wanger Love, he says his full name: his first name he says normally, but his last name he says in the voice of Leon Phelps aka The Ladies Man. "blah blah bla blah blah Wagner Looooveee." It is epic, and he did it 100 times tonight if he did it once. Check it out if you can. Yet another reason why watching footy on Univision is better than anywhere else.

Mexico 2-0 Brasil highlights.

So Brasil broke the cardinal rule of international tournaments: do not lose your first match. The fact that 2 of the 3 3rd place teams advance here makes it not so bad for them, but they certainly start off in a hole and will need a result in their final two matches. At a minimum they will need to play a whole hell of a lot better than they did tonight.

Tomorrow's Group C opener sees Paraguay against Colombia, and then the interesting match comes in the nightcap, when heavy favorites Argentina play a seriously understrength USA squad. Especially after Brasil's weak opening, Argentina will be looking to come out and make a statement, and I just cannot see this US team hanging anywhere near them. It could get ugly, and I wouldn't at all be surprised to see a 4-0 or 5-0 win for Argentina, but as Mexico proved tonight, you never know.

Your current standings:

 GROUP A        GP  W   L   D  Pts  GF  GA  G/Dif
------------------------------------------------
Peru           1   1   0   0   3   3   0    +3
Bolivia        1   0   0   1   1   2   2     E
Venezuela      1   0   0   1   1   2   2     E
Uruguay        1   0   1   0   0   0   3    -3

 GROUP B        GP  W   L   D  Pts  GF  GA  G/Dif
------------------------------------------------
Mexico         1   1   0   0   3   0   0     +2
Chile          1   1   0   0   3   0   0     +1
Ecuador        1   0   1   0   0   0   0     -1
Brazil         1   0   1   0   0   0   2     -2

GROUP C        GP  W   L   D  Pts  GF  GA  G/Dif
------------------------------------------------
Argentina      0   0   0   0   0   0   0     0
Colombia       0   0   0   0   0   0   0     0
Paraguay       0   0   0   0   0   0   0     0
United States  0   0   0   0   0   0   0     0