For the first time since 2015-16, the Copa America title is staying with the reigning champions.
Lautaro Martinez’s 112nd minute goal proved to be the winner as Argentina defeated Colombia 1-0 at Hard Rock Stadium. The result gave Argentina its fourth trophy in the past three years and snapped the Colombians’ 27-match unbeaten run.
Argentina star Lionel Messi left the match with an ankle injury after the hour mark but celebrated his 45th major trophy at the final whistle. Angel Di Maria played his final match for Argentina, exiting the match in extra time.
Martinez came off the bench in the early stages of extra time and delivered his fifth goal of the competition. Giovani Lo Celso’s through-ball pass was rifled home by Martinez, who played the hero for Lionel Scaloni’s men.
It marked Martinez’s fourth goal of the tournament that came after the 80th minute.
Colombia came close to scoring in the opening minutes with Jhon Cordoba striking the post from point blank range. Luis Diaz and Carlos Cuesta were also repelled by Argentina’s Emiliano Martinez in the first half.
Angel Di Maria was kept out twice by Camilo Vargas as Argentina ramped up the pressure in the final third. Nicolas Gonzalez and Nicolas Tagliafico were also repelled by the 35-year-old Vargas, who finished with five saves on the evening.
However, Martinez’s breakthrough moment proved to be the difference as Argentina extended its unbeaten run to four matches against Colombia.
Both teams will have a lengthy break before resuming their respective World Cup Qualifying schedules this fall.
Argentina wins the ‘21 Copa, a ‘22 WC, & another ‘24 Copa putting this squad in the conversation as the greatest side of all time w/ the ‘08-‘12 Spaniards and discussing how amazing this moment is….it’s complaints.
By the way Luiz de la Fuentes camp coming out and saying they are interested in the USMNT head coaching job. Probably negotiation tactics for Spain to pay him more after winning the Euros.
i’d be curious if his contract doesn’t run through 26. why would you hire a coach and only have them under deal through 24? i mean the sequence i understood was he was asking after our job or praising it or whatever — before the final. after the final, with spain and argentina among the favorites, unless he’s out of deal why would spain release him to us? and why would he give up a shot at the world cup itself? i mean, i don’t buy the mopey arguments of how we’re some joke no one would possibly want to coach, or i think they are disinformation used to promote hiring domestic coaches. but if you are like a top 4 NT coach with a chance at the whole thing, we’d be a step down, even if you coached and cajoled and whipped this bunch to the semis.
His contract was through Euros, with an option to WC. After he won NL they picked up the option. From what I understand his salary is fairly low comparatively at 1.3 million. Apparently in the post match press conference he made a comment a long the lines of maybe now you’ll pay me what I’m worth. This really feels like a negotiation tactic with Spain. I’d imagine there’s a buyout clause of some sort most managers would have that.
World cup will be fine. The pitches will be fine.
Along with all the other stuff that went on, while there were moments of individual brilliance, this game was hardly a game. The rule seemed to be no blood, no foul and somebody had to be knocked out before a card was given. It was almost like a street fight between two gangs who occasionally stopped to play soccer. The Euro final was so much more watchable and enjoyable. This game was practically unwatchable for anyone who didn’t identify with one of the teams. I had the whole game on, but hardly paid attention after about an hour into the game.
Thought the game was very entertaining. Two teams fighting for a trophy. The Euro final wasn’t watchable until England scored. Spain was dominating.
Fighting for a trophy. Yes, literally fighting as much as playing.
Gary,
Some people like pitcher’s duels.
Some people like home run derbies.
I prefer pitcher’s duels.
If the USMNT was watching last night they wouldn’t know what they were looking at.
The game featured two very disciplined, intelligent, patient and skilled teams playing tight, hard, disciplined and comparatively clean defense for more than 90 minutes.
That’s quite a change from watching the USMNT.
For a game between these two teams it was pretty clean. Argentina are frighteningly deep and better than Colombia but Colombia raised their game to almost match Argentina.
This was better than the Euro final where Spain were clearly a better team than England, who , whatever the score, always look like the Island of Misfit Toys
Compare this crap Copa organization with fields that were too narrow, bad surfaces, outrageous ticket prices, fights in the stands, stadium chaos, horrendous officiating… and then compare it to the Euros. It’s like amateur vs pros in terms of how to organize a high profile tourney.
Didn’t the exact same stadium rushing occur at Euro 2020 in London?
hate to break it to you but there are probably fewer, not more, turf/indoor fields in the world cup ’26 set, as some of the grass fields used for copa america ’24 get dropped. i think the fanboys were like all naively excited about matching european crowd sizes, and enthused that it’s the new fancy throwball setups near their major metro areas, and ignored whether the US sites are actually grass. trying to think how many we even have on the list besides AZ and SF.
the irony to me is there has been a lot of work on US grass SSS but they are usually of the 15-30k variety. so do you want real grass soccer in a soccer stadium, or do you want your football crowds?
and are they going to give us a world cup to play in red bull arena and Q2.
people may say that ’94 used football stadia but i think maybe 2-3 of those were turf. (boston, NY, detroit)
I believe the NFL stadiums are renovating the sidelines before the WC to meet field size guidelines. Construction timelines are based on World Cup they were never planned for this Copa America. Conmebol decided to mark all fields the same dimensions based off the smallest configuration.
Didn’t they grow the grass in big hexagons in the Silverdome Parking Lot then puzzle piece them together?
JR,
Yes.
“The “field” was sitting outside: 1,900 hexagonal aluminum trays, each containing about 50 square feet of grass.”
It worked and received a lot of praise.
Vac: as I recall the biggest complaint about the Silverdome was how hot and humid it was in there.
JR,
Grass loves hot and humid; probably more than people do.
JR: my fuss is more about field quality and injuries. how the game plays and whether people get hurt. i once watched wes welker blow out a knee untouched stepping in a seam while running a route on the texans’ old pallet grass field. few years after the texans simply switched to turf.
we have the SSS to run a legit grass soccer tournament that we’d be proud of. why can’t we. the way we got “big” before was to use college stadia. we are now using a shortcut, roll sod over turf.
Lol. Euros have had their problems in the past.
Miami was on character last night.
Fitting ending for this Copa America shit-show.