Copa America Other Matches + Group A

[TGAA_Star]

1 minute ago, SpursFlu said:

The anti purist take.. do the expanded tournament every 4 years and always in the US. The stadiums, accessibility and crowds are just too good

You basically have Brazil and Mexico that could host a 24 team tournament. There aren't a lot of options out there. It's either the US or across all of South America 

Canada we probably couldn't pull it off especially as a host but in Mexico they have that infrastructure but also it us a Latin country and CONMEBOL would probably do it in Mexico if they had to rotate it in another country because Mexico being a Spanish speaking nation 

[Watchmen]

3 minutes ago, TGAA_Star said:

A Copa America in Canada or a Copa America in Mexico would do wonders

In Canada, maybe. In Mexico, I think they'd have similar issues to what the South American countries have. It's not that no one attends games, it's just not at the level of the US except when the home team is playing.

[TGAA_Star]

1 minute ago, Watchmen said:

In Canada, maybe. In Mexico, I think they'd have similar issues to what the South American countries have. It's not that no one attends games, it's just not at the level of the US except when the home team is playing.

That's true but the stadium infrastructure is why I could see them doing it there

[Watchmen]

1 minute ago, TGAA_Star said:

That's true but the stadium infrastructure is why I could see them doing it there

You could do a tournament in Mexico, for sure. I just don't think they're anywhere near doing a 24 team tournament.

Sample attendance from 2019 in Brazil:

Bolivia vs Venezuela- 8,091

Colombia vs Paraguay - 13,903

Ecuador vs Chile - 14,727

In a 24 team tournament, you'd be dealing with even smaller countries with smaller crowds.

[TGAA_Star]

3 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

You could do a tournament in Mexico, for sure. I just don't think they're anywhere near doing a 24 team tournament.

Sample attendance from 2019 in Brazil:

Bolivia vs Venezuela- 8,091

Colombia vs Paraguay - 13,903

Ecuador vs Chile - 14,727

In a 24 team tournament, you'd be dealing with even smaller countries with smaller crowds.

Not as much traveling fans unless they can lift that and more country fans can come and support their countries

[Watchmen]

4 minutes ago, TGAA_Star said:

Not as much traveling fans unless they can lift that and more country fans can come and support their countries

Yup. But, the tournament should still be rotated. One fixed spot is ridiculous, as we see with the Gold Cup. 

16 is just a number that works well too. No 3rd place team, wild card spots. 1st or 2nd or go home.

[SpursFlu]

You don't need traveling fans in America. They're clearly already there

[TGAA_Star]

5 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

You don't need traveling fans in America. They're clearly already there

Yeah but what I meant is more and more fans coming from their countries to be there in America filling up every stadium as evidenced in Argentina vs Canada or even now with Colombia vs Paraguay not half empty stadiums 

[SpursFlu]

4 minutes ago, TGAA_Star said:

Yeah but what I meant is more and more fans coming from their countries to be there in America filling up every stadium as evidenced in Argentina vs Canada or even now with Colombia vs Paraguay not half empty stadiums 

Yah of course.. but the foundation is already there to guarantee at least a solid crowd for every game. I hope Canadians get inspired to hop on a plane or car and get behind Canada. The buzz has definitely grown in a matter of 1 week

[InglewoodJack]

The issue with Copa in the US is that ticket prices price out most fans from neutral fans. A game like Uruguay - Panama is a very good game to watch, but at $250? Not sure about that. 
 

I think (hope) Canada could host this tournament at some point. I think our geography/stadium types might help us mitigate some of the issues with USA Copa. Have one side of the table cluster around BC/AB, the other cluster around QC/ON. Both regions have big stadiums for big games (thinking of the WCified TFC stadium), and smaller stadiums for other games that might attract more fans. $25 tickets for Uruguay/Panama in Montreal, for example, is a sell out. Not sure if Copa has similar requirements as the World Cup for all stadiums to have above a certain attendance, but I think we have plenty of (very nice) smaller stadiums that could fill up nicely instead of having to play everything at a half empty NFL stadium. 

[TGAA_Star]

Colombia 🇨🇴 beats Paraguay 🇵🇾 2-1 and now Brazil 🇧🇷 in the nightcap game faces Costa Rica 🇨🇷 

[narduch]

Costa Rica starting a keeper that plays in the Spanish 3rd tier v Brazil.

Navas retired from International football 

[RS]

On 6/23/2024 at 1:08 PM, narduch said:

In a way we lucked out. Our next 2 games will be on real grass.

I think Argentina's next match will again be on sod laid over artificial. 

But their 3rd game will be at a real grass stadium

Switched over to Brazil vs. Costa Rica for a bit. 

Grass looks pretty damn good at SoFi Stadium, although the field is a bit narrow.

With AT&T also looking and playing well, I’m getting the sense that the issue in Atlanta and Houston is more of a local organizer failing. I could be wrong though.

 

[costarg]

2 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

Expand it but keep it rotated. Let’s not ruin another international tournament by having it always in one country. This tournament has immense potential to be the best in the world but will never reach it if they make the USA the hub. 

Especially with temporary grass rolled out on artificial turf.  That's a major crutch, gotta respect the game enough to play on proper fields.  These crap turfs are ruining the experience and product while affecting the results.

[red card]

Based on the weekend matches, the discourse has been the empty seats, lack of atmosphere and bad pitches. Lots of unfavourable comparisons being made with the Euros.

The pitch issue varies by location as Jerry World hired a contractor who put 3-4 layers on the concrete with sand and other materials before laying down the grass.

Only Argentina/Canada was basically a sellout. Next largest was 54k for MEX/JAM. But it looked like a near sellout for Colombia/Paraguay today. Revenue wise, Conmebol/SUM are doing fine given the very high ticket prices for the marquee matches. 

High ticket prices have killed the atmosphere in most of the matches. But there are caveats here also as Messi fanboys largely were in attendance for Argentina & Mexican fans were in show me mode rather than their usual over the top celebratory demeanour. Colombia/Paraguay match atmosphere has been the best and on par with a Euro 2024 match. Despite the lowest attended at only 30k for Ecuador/Venezuela, it's atmosphere was better than most of the other matches.

[Lansdude]

Brazil suck 

[74 Whitecap]

23 minutes ago, Lansdude said:

Brazil suck 

I'm just going to be tacky and re-quote my own reaction from an earlier thread after their pre-Copa friendly vs the US:

"I saw some signs that would be worrying to me if I was a Brazil fan, especially after the US fell back. With the ball against the packed US defense, they didn't seem to have a lot of ideas and their perimeter shooting was woeful. Without the ball, they did press, but their press seemed disjointed without proper teamwork/intensity to make it effective. Have seen much better press execution in friendlies in recent days from Argentina and the Netherlands.

And with games against Paraguay and Costa Rica in the Copa, Brazil are going to see some stacked defences, so we'll see if they do a better job breaking them down than they did vs. the US"

So we came, we saw, they stunk.

It is kind of frustrating that Costa Rica gets a point out of that vs Brazil while Canada gets nothing from the game against Argentina. But that's soccer, and you can't say Costa Rica doesn't know how to park a bus, that is for sure.

[JAVIERF]

Gustavo Alfaro from Patagonia's Olimpo of Bahia Blanca's stardom promotion to the eternity and beyond!!!

[xabuep2]

Here in Panama the following debate was opened:

Do you prefer to get a tie from Brazil by playing like Costa Rica, with everyone in the goal, and only shooting twice or losing like Panama vs Uruguay, going head-to-head, with 10 shots, and with the international press surprised and praising our offensive game?

 

Costa Rica achieved a result, and we did not. If we see this with a cold mind.

 

In my opinion It depends on what you want to achieve. Make players visible? Try new players? Strengthen our game? There is a chance to win the Copa América? no... C. Rica's game was boring, Panama was exciting, every shot on goal was an opportunity. I'll stick with the Panama game.

[TGAA_Star]

Costa Rica vs Brazil ends in a 0-0 draw and when it did, even I have to admit I was shocked

[mpg_29]

I was surprised as well but also somewhat not surprised as the game went on. Costa Rica is probably one of the more underrated teams in concacaf? They tend to bunker but whatever your thoughts on it they do it well and consistently which makes things difficult for a lot of teams. They are overachievers at the tournament level. Remember that this country was nearly a WC semi finalist in 2014 and made thing interesting against Germany for a few minutes there in 2022....

[Mihairokov]

CR have a penchant for getting results in major international tournaments against non-Concacaf sides. A combination of that plus Brazil looking honestly pretty poor and we get 0-0. There's a very good chance Brazil don't even make the knockout round out of that group.

[Alex]

3 minutes ago, Mihairokov said:

CR have a penchant for getting results in major international tournaments against non-Concacaf sides. A combination of that plus Brazil looking honestly pretty poor and we get 0-0. There's a very good chance Brazil don't even make the knockout round out of that group.

Every prediction I’ve seen have all said Brazil and Colombia advance, that may not happen. Ranking wise it’s not bad for us if Costa Rica grabs points from CONMEBOL opponents, with nations league happening more and more it gives us opportunity to grab those extra points from a team like Costa Rica down the road. 

[BearcatSA]

33 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

I was surprised as well but also somewhat not surprised as the game went on. Costa Rica is probably one of the more underrated teams in concacaf? They tend to bunker but whatever your thoughts on it they do it well and consistently which makes things difficult for a lot of teams. They are overachievers at the tournament level. Remember that this country was nearly a WC semi finalist in 2014 and made thing interesting against Germany for a few minutes there in 2022....

They were a spilled cross from getting a point in Edmonton, too.

 

[maplebanana]

3 hours ago, Mihairokov said:

CR have a penchant for getting results in major international tournaments against non-Concacaf sides. A combination of that plus Brazil looking honestly pretty poor and we get 0-0. There's a very good chance Brazil don't even make the knockout round out of that group.

We just had an executive review at work. The type of uber serious, hardcore engineering stuff where everyone has a PhD. Before it there was a bit of chit chat about the euros and copa. Someone brought up the brazil-CRC draw and said 'why do you think that happened'? I, clad in my canada soccer jersey, blurted out 'Costa Rica always does well against non-CONCACAF teams in major tournaments'.

The absolute silence was deafening.