Argentina were bad, everyone will say Messi and Agüero did nothing but their defence and midfield is just woeful. Not to take anything away from Colombia though, they will be tough for anyone to beat. I have them as favourites right now. Especially because I don’t think Uruguay will have a good tournament and I’m not convinced by Brasil.
Queiroz leaving his mark on Colombia already. The clear tactical winner vs. the much less experienced Scaloni.
I was impressed with Qatar vs Paraguay. They're clearly not the kind of team to give up easily even when down 2-0. And as for Uruguay vs Edcaudor...yikes being down a player after giving up a goal is not looking good...
The VAR sucks. The new rule of not calling the offside until the the play is done sucks. This Brazilian ref sucks. These morons are killing the game. And I'm saying this while my team is winning...
Everyone wants and expects Colombia to be more offensive because they have so many technical players but being defensive and capitalizing on the counter is working out lovely for them. Brazil's still the favorite but I have Colombia as the 2nd best right now.
Agreed. At the very, very least they could give an accurate amount of extra time to make up for all those VAR reviews. But no, it's still 3-4 minutes like always. Peru-Venezuela should have had 8 minutes of extra time.
I blame the refs and their systems. I've seen enough times when things like that get settled within a minute and i've seen it go as long as 5 minutes after half time that the ref decides to call the players back into the field. Quite frankly this is user-error and not VAR itself which is frustrating.
If the refs are not ready then it shouldn't be used in any major tournament. How many leagues in South America are using VAR right now? How many around the world? It's laughable to expect something other than what we're seeing now. Use it for a couple of years. Get the kinks out. See what works and what doesn't. Get some uniformity throughout and then apply it in the big tournaments. Look at the new rule of not calling the offside until the play is done! It's moronic! Why have "profesional" linemen at all? What are they gonna do? We can pick someone from the stands to call the ball out of bounds like travel soccer leagues. Who comes up with these ideas?
Just like any new technology in life there will be growing pains at first and things should get better as the years go by. Right now there are some moments of confusion and moments of long stoppages of play but some see it as more drama and more things to talk about. As long as VAR gets the calls right on a higher percentage than if we had no VAR then I am all for it. Flow of the game can be sacrificed for justice on the field.
You may think it sucks but it is needed. If a linesman makes a mistake and lifts his flag and there is a whistle by the Ref and a goal is scored and then nullified that to me is more egregious. The Linesman should only lift up his flag if he is 100% certain there is an offside. This new rule makes it much easier for the VAR people to determine if a goal should count or not without any whistles or stoppages because of borderline calls.
So, which Copa America group will produce the 3rd worst team in the tournament? After seeing Group A matches, I think only 2 teams will advance there. The tournament will lose competitiveness if 3 teams advance from that group.
We fell in love with football for the flow of the game and the emotion. I don't mind VAR if its used well like in the World Cup, but this Copa has been the worst use of it I've seen so far.
I think Group B. Maybe I am biased and want Peru to go through but Paraguay and Qatar will both lose to Argentina and Colombia I reckon.
It should not be a problem qualifying as 2nd in Group A. Something tells that not everyone will beat Bolivia in Group A. That will be the other team to be eliminated along Bolivia. Qatar should get some slack during its 3rd match. All that money paid for CA TV rights will be hard to ignore.
Baloney... This rule gives cover to gutless linemen afraid of making a decision. That's their job. That's why they're paid handsomely.
Japan's Olympic squad is pretty decent against the defending champions. We may have a very interesting olympics next year for the japanese when they host.
I think I am going to stop watching football. Honestly this is becomming a joke. Bolivia awarded a penalty for their attacker shooting the ball at the Peru defenders face from literally less than a meter away, and the defender blocked his face with his hand. If he had no hands the ball would have hit straight into his face, what was he supposed to do, just let the ball smash into his face. How on earth is that a penalty ? To add insult to injury, the player is carded FOR PROTECTING HIS FACE. These rules are horrible, what a farce football is becomming. It just seems to be a contest of lets just dash somebody a penalty to make things interesting. What ever happend to ball to hand rule ? Or intent ? Or if the hand is AWAY from the body ? Do these rules no longer apply ? Is it just any handball is a PK period ? I mean why even try to score anymore when you can just shoot and aim for somebodys hand. That is much easier and much more effective way of scoring. I'm getting sick of this garbage.