El cuento era que Lionel Messi nunca había ganado un trofeo con la selección adulta de Argentina. Pero ese suplicio hoy se acabó. El "10" lideró a la Albiceleste en el Maracaná para derrotar a Brasil y conseguir la primera Copa América de la nación desde 1993.
Entre todo el humo y el magnetismo que producen Lionel Messi y Neymar, una de las grandes figuras que emerge de la Copa América 2021 es el colombiano Luis Díaz. El delantero de origen wayuu demostró un ritmo endemoniado, magia incombustible y terminó marcando cuatro goles durante el torneo: uno a Brasil, uno a Argentina y dos a Perú. Estos últimos le valieron a Colombia el tercer lugar de la competencia y un premio para su federación de cuatro millones de dólares.
Like Bernie Sanders posted up at a presidential debate, Euro 2020 offered the world a chance to turn into vociferous fans of Denmark. Christian Eriksen’s collapse was numbingly tragic, but the way the Danes responded in the moment and the days after was the sort of archetypal hero story usually only reserved for myths.
When Lionel Messi announced his international retirement after missing in the penalty shootout defeat to Chile at the 2016 Copa América Final, he disappeared into the New Jersey night with the crushing final words: “For me, the national team is over. I’ve done all I can. It hurts not to be a champion. It’s been four finals, I tried. It was the thing I wanted the most, but I couldn’t get it, so I think it’s over.”
It wasn’t.
The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is the forgotten child of the soccer world. The only time fans really hear about the OFC is when it sends New Zealand to a World Cup qualifying playoff that it loses nine times out of ten, or the Oceania team that gets sent to the Confederations Cup.
Anyone else remember when poor Tahiti was forced to play Spain, Uruguay and Nigeria at the 2013 Confederations Cup? It takes a special team to finish with a -23 goal differential after three games.
There’s something enthrallingly stagelike about these Copa América knockout round matches behind closed doors. If Euro 2020 is acting as a celebration of the world moving forward with vaccinations, the Copa can be seen as a reminder of the pandemic’s enforced isolation mixed with unhinged personal tendencies.
With just over two weeks to go before the USWNT opens the group stage of the Summer Olympics against Sweden in Tokyo, manager Vlatko Andonovski — treating the send off series like a college senior — wanted to experiment with some things.
Namely, the scenario of “what if we put seven players in attack and got buck wild?” One feature of this particular setup was the presence of deep-lying midfielder Lindsey Horan taking her place alongside Carli Lloyd for the game’s opening period.
The USWNT defeated Mexico 4-0 during an international friendly in the pouring rain of Hartford, Connecticut on Thursday night to extend the team’s unbeaten streak to 43 games. The matchup was one of two games the U.S. and Mexico will play as a send-off for the Olympics later this month. The USWNT vs Mexico highlights and takeaways include the return of Tobin Heath, Christen Press continuing her insane form and lots and lots of rain.
En un partido antológico, maravilloso, impresionante y fantástico, España venció en la prórroga a Croacia y avanzó a los cuartos de final de la Euro 2020. Fue un 5-3 que será difícil de olvidar.
Los españoles llegaban al enfrentamiento tras una decepcionante fase de grupos, pero que alcanzó a salvar en su último duelo con un magnífico 5-0 ante Eslovaquia.
El excelente estado de forma de Cristiano Ronaldo no fue suficiente para Portugal. El campeón reinante de la Euro dijo adiós este domingo en los octavos de final de la edición 2020 del torneo, ante una selección de Bélgica que supo dañar, pero que también supo aguantar cuando sus principales figuras abandonaron el campo, heridos en la batalla.