Copa America 2019

Argentina has looked pretty good in these games against Mexico in my opinion but yes Messi and other players will probably be back.

Personally I would put them as the third favorite to win behind Brazil (obviously) and Uruguay.

Colombia is the dark horse (Hoping and praying) but until they get a manager it is really hard to say.


Everyone else pretty much has very little chances of winning the Copa in my eyes.

 

As much as I love Rueda I don't think he will have Chile ready in time to make a run.

That sad, they still are two time defending champs so they do have some pride. Who knows?

 

Ready for the draw : Here are the pots

Pot 1: Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay
Pot 2: Chile, Colombia, Peru
Pot 3: Paraguay, Venezuela, Japan
Pot 4: Ecuador, Bolivia, Qatar

One of the rule is that Japan and Qatar won't be in the same group of the first round. The 3 winners, 3 runners up and two best third will qualify to QF.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Copa_América

 

Considering Brasil has not lost an official home match to a South American opponent...
... since 1975 I will say it will be difficult to beat them.

It may take a team like Uruguay taking them to penalties or something like that to eliminate them.

 

A: Brasil va a ganar el grupo con 9 puntos y también posiblemente +10 GD. Perú y Venezuela dirimen 2do lugar (ojo con Venezuela). Bolivia 0.

B: En el primer partido Argentina y Colombia dirimen el 1er puesto. Ojo con Qatar que está teniendo muy buena copa Asia, podría darle una sorpresa a Paraguay.

C: el grupo más parejo, creo que lo gana Uruguay pero no con 9 puntos. El segundo lugar puede ser cualquier cosa, Chile viene en caída, Ecuador con el bolillo hay que ver si levanta, Japón puede ser un lindo dark horse en el torneo.

Pronostico que los dos mejores terceros saldrán de los grupos A y C.

 

Group C is the toughest.

 

Ir depends.

Ecuador is not the same Ecuador of previous cycles but Bolillo could have some old time magic. Chile may continue to have some problems adjusting to Rueda's tactics. And We don't even know what kind of team Japan may bring. I would venture to say that they will bring a "B" or " C" team if the Euro Clubs (as expected) do not allow their star players to play (They are under no obligation by FIFA to release Japanese players for Copa America.).

I think Group B may end up being the toughest.

 

And I expect Qatar to have the better squad in Brazil because basically their whole team is based in the Qatari League and won't need special permission to go.

 

They'll still suck, but yeah, for a group's 4th-best team they're decent. Agree, probably better than Japan and comparable to Bolivia (and other 3 teams in "B" of course way better than in "A").

 

I hope they suck but they just won the Asian Championship, they are growing as a team, and they are growing in confidence.

I assume that they have a team cohesion and will play defensively. Paraguay and Colombia are both bringing in new Managers with new philosophies so there can be growing pains.

Talent wise they are just not as strong but I am not going to take them lightly. They can surprise.

 

If Japan decided to bring the A team (the one that played in WC 2018), I could say they will beat Chile and Ecuador for sure. Their last game against Belgium was great, but they try to score a third goal a couple of times and they ended up paying a high price.

 

It is not up to Japan to decide technically.
It is up to the European Clubs to allow the players to play.

 

Please. Japan weren't that great in the WC. Firstly, they played in arguably the weakest group. Then they were super lucky to beat Colombia, which was their only good result of the tournament.

Yeah, nice effort against Belgium but its not like that one performance sets Japan apart from Ecuador and Chile.

 

Sorry, I don't quite get why clubs could deny players to Japan while at the same time they can't deny players to south american teams. Do FIFA rules say something specific about playing tournaments of different confederations? I thought that as long as it's a FIFA endorsed competition (like the copa is), clubs can't deny players. Back in 2015 Jamaica brought several players of European clubs for example.

 

After a quick google search I found this:

It is not compulsory to release the same player for more than one "A" representative team final competition per year. Exceptions to this rule can be established by the FIFA Executive Committee for the FIFA

So basically it is up to the individual Club teams to allow the Japanese players to play in the Copa since many of them have already played in the Asian Cup this year.

Sure there are some clubs that may think about allowing the players to play like in the case of Jamaica but I if I recall the Jamaican players were on smaller clubs some that were not even in top flight divisions and/or were not main contributers so there was not much risk.

 

And as expected Qatar basically is bringing everyone from that Asian Championship Squad.
Saad Al Sheeb, Yousuf Hassan, Mohammed Al Bakri, Tarek Salman, Pedro Miguel, Abdelkarim Hassan, Hamid Ismail, Boualem Khoukhi, Bassam Al Rawi, Sultan Al Braik, Tameem Al Muhaiza, Al Mahdi Ali, Ismail Mohd, Abdullah Al Ahrak, Musaab Khidr, Assim Madibo, Karim Boudiaf, Ali Afif, Abdelaziz Hatem, Ahmed Alaa, Salem Al Hajri, Abdulrahman Mohammed, Ahmed Moein, Ahmed Fathi, Abdelrahman Mohammed, Akram Afif, Hassan Al Haydos, Almoez Ali, Abdulaziz Al Ansari

Japan is bringing basically an Olympic prep U-22 squad with a hand full of capped over -age players.
Eiji Kawashima, Ryosuke Kojima, Keisuke Osako, Naomichi Ueda, Yuta Nakayama, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Tomoki Iwata, Ko Itakura, Daiki Sugioka, Teruki Hara, Daiki Suga, Yuta Nakayama, Gaku Shibasaki, Shoya Nakajima, Takefusa Kubo, Tatsuya Ito, Koji Miyoshi, Kota Watanabe, Hiroki Abe, Taishi Matsumoto, Shinji Okazaki, Daizen Maeda, Ayase Ueda

 

Does anyone know if name and numbers will be on the back of Argentina jerseys for the Copa? I want to get Lautaro’s jersey but I want to make sure it looks exactly like the jersey they will wear in the Copa. Last night vs Nicaragua they only had numbers.

 

BTW,
This is kind of old news but there's probably many people here asking why Japan and Qatar are the ones who are invited to the Copa America.
Well, just like most things in life, just follow the money trails:


http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/bein-sports-exclusive-copa-america-rights-27-markets-brazil

Global broadcaster BeIN Sports has secured exclusive rights in 27 international markets to this year’s Copa América in Brazil.
The agreement, brokered by Japanese marketing giant Dentsu, includes broadcast rights to South America’s international soccer tournament in Australia and New Zealand, in addition to contracts in France and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which were agreed earlier in the year.
A month out from the tournament, which starts on 14th June and ends in Rio de Janeiro on 7th July, the deal also expands BeIN’s media partnership with Conmebol, South American soccer’s governing body, having also agreed to show three of the continent’s club tournaments in multiple territories.

(And for those of you who do not know BeIn Sports is owned essentially by the Qatari government.)

 

Here is an article on reasons why Qatar and Japan accepted the invitations:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevep...-america-to-make-up-the-numbers/#1bdb0ce15024