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Club football action takes a hiatus following the UEFA Champions League final and football fans worldwide will be pondering over what they can do to survive the two months without their favourite club’s matches. Relief comes in the form of international tournaments. The summer break will see action from the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the UEFA U21 Euro and, most importantly, the 2015 Copa America.
The Copa America resumes after a gap of four years and the prestigious competition featuring teams from the South American continent will be hosted by Chile. It promises to be a feast to our eyes. It is a tournament with a vast and interesting history and has witnessed some interesting events over the century.
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Here are five amazing stories from the Copa America.
1) The Uruguay-Argentina rivalry and the subsequent tournament hiatus
The most famous rivalry in international football is between Argentina and Brazil, but when it comes to Copa America the Argentinians consider the Uruguayans as their biggest rivals for several reasons. Uruguay and Argentina are the two most successful teams in the tournament with 15 and 14 titles to their name respectively. But their rivalry in the tournament stems from reasons that started way back in 1930.
The final of the inaugural edition of the FIFA World Cup was contested between Uruguay and Argentina in 1930. The former won the tournament despite trailing the game at half-time. Argentina’s defeat sparked off the animosity between the two sides and in the Argentine capital a mob threw stones at the Uruguayan consulate.
The enmity between the two football federations grew and it prevented the tournament from being held for several years. Finally, six years after the previous edition, a special edition of the tournament was held in 1935 with just four participating teams, namely Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay as Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia withdrew. The tournament was only reinstated with its proper format four years later in 1939.
The Argentina-Uruguay rivalry has grown over the years and the two teams met in the previous edition of the tournament where Uruguay beat their rivals on penalties and later went on to win the tournament.
2) Minnows Honduras crash Brazil’s party in 2001
The Argentines had withdrawn from the 2001 edition due to security threats and this gave Brazil a glorious chance to win the title. The Selecao were due to play last minute invitees Honduras in the quarter-final. who had arrived just before their opening game against Costa Rica. They had got off to a losing start only to bounce back with two wins against Bolivia and Uruguay. Even then, nobody expected them to pull a rabbit out of the hat against Brazil.
Although the Brazilians were without many of their stars from the 1998 World Cup or the 2002 World Cup a year later, they were still far stronger than Honduras. After a goalless first half, Honduras took the lead through a deflected goal. The Brazilians couldn’t find a way past a resilient Honduras defence and their misery was complete when Honduras scored again at the death.
After the game, Brazil’s coach Luiz Felipe Scolari commented: "I, Big Phil, will go down in history as the Brazil coach who lost to Honduras. It's horrible, but Honduras played better than us and deserved to win."
This match will forever be remembered as the greatest upset in the tournament’s history.
3) Argentina vs Brazil in 1991 sees five goals and five red cards
Matches between Brazil and Argentina are always fiercely contested but in this particular match things went out of control. It was the first match of the final round fixtures of the 1991 edition and the fans couldn’t have asked for a better game.
The Argentines took the lead in the very first minute of the game through Dario Franco only for the Brazilians to equalize four minutes later through a stunning free-kick from Branco. In the 31st minute Claudio Caniggia of Argentina and Mazinho of Brazil were sent off for an altercation after their legs got entangled and eight minutes later Dario Franco restored Argentina’s lead with yet another header, this time an even better one.
Argentina started the second half of the game like they started the first – with a goal in the opening minute and once again it was a headed goal. This time the goalscorer was Gabriel Batistuta, but once again Brazil scored within the space of a few minutes to put pressure on their arch rivals.
More drama followed as the referee sent off one player each from both camps once again. Carlos Enrique of Argentina and Marcio Roberto of Brazil were given the marching orders in the 61st minute and another player was taken off on a stretcher.
Brazil were frantically searching for a goal and in the 78th minute and Careca Bianchez came on as a substitute only to be sent off within two minutes. The match eventually ended 3-2 to the Argentines and it proved to be decisive as Argentina lifted the title with a single point lead over Brazil in the final round.
4) Tournament jeopardized as Argentina withdraw in 2001
As there is no qualifying tournament for the Copa America, all 10 South American countries were part of the tournament as usual and they were joined by Mexico and Canada to complete the twelve. Prior to the tournament held in Colombia, there were security threats in the host nation and CONMEBOL cancelled the tournament. Venezuela offered to host the tournament on short notice, but in the last minute Colombia were given the green light to host the event.
The Argentine football federation were unhappy with the sudden reversal and they claimed that their players had received death threats from various terrorist organizations. Eventually, they withdrew from the tournament despite Colombia’s repeated assurances over Argentina’s added security measures.
To make matters worse, when the first cancellation was announced, Canadian players returned to their club teams. At this point, the tournament couldn’t go ahead as it needed two more teams. Costa Rica and Honduras were given late invites to join the tournament and the two nations accepted the invite.
Honduras was a last minute invitee and they arrived with barely enough players in a plane provided by Colombian Air Force after the tournament started and just a few hours before their first game against Costa Rica.
5) Paraguay reaches the final without winning a single game in 2011
For the 2011 edition of the tournament, the tournament favourites were the usual suspects – Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. But Paraguay, who were ranked 32 before the tournament, sprung a huge surprise.
They were drawn in Group B along with Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador and drew all three of their games, finishing third in the group behind Brazil and Venezuela. Since there are only 12 teams in the tournament, the two highest best third-placed teams from all the groups also make it to the quarter-finals. Courtesy of their zero goal difference, Paraguay made it to the quarter-finals at the expense of Costa Rica who had a -2 goal difference.
In the quarter-final, Paraguay once again faced Brazil. The match was goalless after extra time and the Paraguayans edged past Brazil on penalties to reach the semi-final. In the semi-final, they faced Venezuela again and after another goalless draw they won on penalties.
Paraguay’s good luck on penalties couldn’t be tested a third time as they lost 3-0 to Uruguay in the final.
