Thursday 14 July 2011

Why I'm Loving the Copa America

As the title suggests, here's a quick irreverent rundown of why I'm enjoying the tournament so far:



  • There's quality players I'm discovering that even I hadn't heard of. For instance, Estigarribia of Paraguay, whose reward for dismantling Dani Alves (yes, that Dani Alves) against Brazil was to get Dani Alves dropped. Unfortunately for Estigarribia, the bizarre tournament format means he now will most likely have to face the much more defensively-sound (well, unless your name is Gareth Bale) Maicon in the quarter-finals. Also impressing was Venezuela's pirate-like centre-back Vizcarrondo, about whom Alexandre Pato is still probably having nightmares

  • There's an underlying feeling that this is a football tournament for proper football geeks like yours truly. ESPN's excellent, unflashy coverage, the late kick-off times, the regular tweets and Guardian columns of football tactics God Jonathan Wilson, this is a tournament for those who know their football

  • Following on from that point, the variety of different tactics and formations (far, far more than in any European tournament) have really added to the Copa. This writer will resist from going into too much depth in this post, but the contrast between, say, Argentina's 4-3-3, Chile (more on them later) and their 3-3-1-3/3-4-1-2, Brazil's 4-2-3-1 and Uruguay's 4-4-2 is fascinating

  • Chile. I adore them. The breathtaking all-out attack style favoured at the World Cup by Marcelo Bielsa has been continued by his successor, Claudio Borghi. Borghi has at times favoured adding another central midfielder at the expense of one of the front 3, but even that has helped release playmaker Jorge Valdivia, who excelled in the space between Uruguay's back 4 and midfield. And then there's Alexis Sanchez. Wonderful, wonderful player-unlike many of the other star names at the tournament, he's actually lived up to his headline billing, embodying the spirit of his team beautifully with his pace, trickery and technique. Should he, as expected, join Barcelona after the Copa, the rest of Europe might as well give up