Uruguay vs. Venezuela ended 1-0 in favor of La Vinotinto, as a Suarez-less Uruguay basically bowed out of the Copa America without a fight. Venezuela frustrated La Celeste, and continually hit them on the break to great effect, with Salomon Rondon scoring the lone goal. Neither team are assured of anything yet, but barring a shock result when Mexico take on Jamaica later tonight, Uruguay are out, and Venezuela are through.
Who would have thought Mexico would have had a tougher time with Jamaica than Uruguay? Despite the back and forth match, El Tri netted another 2-0 result against a Jamaican side that didn't take advantage of their opportunities. Chicharitos first goal of the tournament was a beauty, and now the Bundesliga star is just 1 goal away from tying all-time leading Mexican scorer Jared Borgetti. El Tri are now in the quarterfinals and will play Venezuela on Monday.
Twenty four players born outside the Americas are playing in the Copa America Centenario, and 23 of them are Europeans, so they might have been able to play in Euro 2016.
Take Gonzalo Higuain, for example. Higuain was born on December 10, 1987, in France, but barely stayed in Europe a few months before going to Argentina, where he remained throughout his development as a player before signing with Real Madrid in January 2007. Higuain was born in France because his father Jorge, also a footballer, played in Brest.
Greece was utterly abysmal in their qualifying campaign for Euro 2016, winning only a single match and finishing behind both Finland and the Faroe Islands. For supporters of Greece, Ioannis “Giannis” Maniatis may have just provided their most spectacular moment in years with this belter of a goal from 65 yards out.
It's time for another international tournament in the form of the European Championships, and while Euro 2016 songs are sparse, they're not nonexistent.
This is Hafthor Bjornsson. Hafthor is a very big Icelandic man (More like Doublethor, am I right? Sorry, I couldn't resist). He spends most of his time doing this:
He's pretty much one of the strongest men in the world. Photo: @SIMundial | Twitter
As the final whistle blew on Saturday's 0-0 draw between the Brazil National Team and Ecuador, boos began to ring down from fans all around the Rose Bowl. Brazil had been largely unimpressive and ineffective, punctuated only by occasional moments of magic that failed to produce anything of substance. For anyone hoping that Brazil could shake off the shackles of the 2014 World Cup and regain their spot at the top of world football, it was a depressing dose of reality.
Mexico and Uruguay were tied 1-1 in a hard-fought Copa America group stage game Wednesday when 37-year-old Mexico captain Rafa Marquez put his stamp on the match and removed all doubt as to the merits of putting an old creaky person in the starting lineup of a major international match.
Marquez, who once partnered Carles Puyol on Barcelona's back line, was upfield for a Mexico corner when he received a pass near the corner of the six-yard box and hammered the winning goal into the net. This is not the sort of behavior we expected from Marquez.
England took on Portugal today in an internatinoal friendly. The match was really more of a tune-up game for the imminent Euro 2016 tournament than anything else, and so both sides were looking to learn more about their players, try out some new things, and generally just finish off the day better than they started it.
Except for Bruno Alves. Bruno Alves almost killed Harry Kane.
Reports have been flying around that Real Madrid have seen a €50 million offer for fullback David Alaba rebuffed by Bayern Munich. Apparently, that monumental figure was enough to throw the Austrian off his game because he just did this in a friendly for Austria against Malta.