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This is a personal view. This isn’t what the whole team here at sportige.com thinks. Still, I should go ahead and say it – This Copa America, with Brazil and Argentina or without them, is a terrible tournament. They Copa America usually is, but this time it’s worse than ever. Any illusion of Latin football being creative, full of fantasists, dribblers and attack minded head coaches just goes out the window every time I watch a game.
The only teams to actually put on a show are/were Venezuela, Peru and Chile. But even when they are playing and scoring, the level of play isn’t high. Where’s the World Cup? Where’s the Euro, the 2008 Euro, which was probably the best soccer tournament I have ever seen?
It’s always nice when an underdog wins, but having no favorites, no juggernaut team at all, the two teams that can (but didn’t) produce soccer worthwhile watching at obscure hours across the Atlantic are gone. They played terribly, but it’s not that Uruguay or Paraguay were out of this world. They just defended very well and had a bit of luck (or more than a bit of…) during the penalty shootouts. No flair, no great skills (except for Luis Suarez during certain moments). Just trying to take out Messi and watch the entire Argentinian side helplessly fail to do something without their magic no. 10, who wasn’t so magic after all.
The integration of European fundamentals into South American soccer have killed the dream, the legend, the myth. There’s nothing different between Brazil and a typical Italian squad. Long Balls, but without big and effective strikers. Argentina look and remind me of England – A team full of belief and aspirations, but never fulfilling them, each failure looking more glorious and tragic than the one before. And they’re still certain they’re among the best in the world.
No new gospel, and not even what highly touted youngster living up to the enormous price tags linked to his name – Neymar, Javier Pastore on top of that list. I wouldn’t even pay 20 million for them from the way they looked in their shortened Copa.
There was a huge FourFourTwo article on how the Brazilian national team and Brazilian football as a whole are slumping, citing numerous reasons for the fact that the selecao are no where near the top of the charts or contenders these days. No wonder they haven’t made it to a World Cup Semi Final since 2002. No imagination, head coaches too scared to attempt anything that isn’t predictable. The development of wingers, while creative midfielders and potent strikers seem like a thing of the past.
Brazil, Argentina and South American football is in big trouble. Forget the fact that it’s behind the Europeans in terms of quality and success. It’s F&*^#ng boring to watch.
4 responses to “I Hate the Copa America”
This is a new age in south american football. Brazil hasn’t produced a perfect player since Ronaldinho decided practice was not for him. Yeah the football has become more defensive but its not because there are not creators in south america but the nations like Venezuela who are only now playing acceptable football have taken enough beatings to just want to not lose. What does that mean? Uruguay isn’t going to go tick for tack and give Messi space that would just be giving the match away. And if you aren’t south american you won’t ever be excited to watch a bunch of brown guys chase a ball around. All that matters is that my country just made semi finals for the first time in our history in any competition. If you don’t like it just wait for the premier league to restart.
If South American football is so terrible, then who’s good? Spain, Germany.. that’s a short list, and Spain plays in the South American style. All the great European clubs are stacked with Brazilian and Argentine players, which makes no sense of European football is so vastly superior. Even with the best South American players all playing in Europe, we still have clubs that are strong enough in talent to be competitive with Europe in the Club World Cup.
I can’t comment about Brazil, but in Argentina the problem lately has been bad coaching (Maradona and Batista making Messi a midfielder), while superior coaches remain idle due to petty personal grievances of AFA chief Julio Grondona. As anyone who watches the Argentine league knows, the country has plenty of playmakers, but we just need an accomplished coach to put the right pieces together, instead of trying to placate egos by keeping four strikers on the pitch.
whoever wrote this article is a total moron and to say the level of play is low in unjust and clearly came from a source of low mental capacity!! There are a lot of the best players on the planet participating in this tournament and i will agree it has not been the most exciting… but seeing brazil loose in the fashion they did missing four penalty shots in a row has made up for all shortcomings in my mind! and by the way i believe los celestes who are defending a fourth place run in the world cup are going to be lifting the trophy soon and if you don’t like something dont watch it you moron
WTF? European Soccer is better than South America? Guys you should fire who wrote this article!