Free football predictions and tips for Copa America

COPA AMERICA- THE OLDEST INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL COMPETITION 

Copa América is known as the oldest football competition of national teams in the world. Having more than a century celebrated, the tournament has become the indispensable spiritual food for football fanatics every year. Today, let’s explore more and more of this competition together with Betimate!

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF COPA AMERICA?

The full name of Copa America is CONMEBOL Copa América (CONMEBOL América Cup). It used to be also known as the South American Football Championship (Campeonato Sudamericano de Fútbol in Spanish and Copa Sul-Americana de Futebol in Portuguese). Since 1975, the competition was officially renamed Copa America on the occasion of its 30th edition. This is the main football tournament for men participated by national teams from CONMEBOL(The South American Football Confederation). 

Founded in 1916, Copa America is the oldest football competition of national teams in the world. It is the third most-watched competition as well. Initially, it was for finding the champions of South America. Since the 1990s, clubs from North America and Asia have also been invited to join the tournament.

From 1993, the competition has generally featured 12 Copa America teams: 

• All 10 CONMEBOL teams: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
• 2 guest teams from the other confederations: the invited teams are from CONCACAF( Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Haiti, Panama, the United States), from AFC ( Japan-1999), and from Qatar (2019).
• Qatar and Australia were teams that received invitations in 2021. However, they withdrew from the competition due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The tournament was then postponed in order to protect the health and safety of the clubs, media, visitors, and host cities.

The first two guest teams were the United States and Mexico. Invited teams, however, never won a tournament edition. Mexico was considered the team with the best result when being the runner-up in 1993 and 2001. 

Eight of the ten CONMEBOL national teams have won the competition once at least since the event’s inauguration in 1916. Ecuador and Venezuela are the two remaining teams that have not won the tournament yet.

Copa America 2021

PRIZE AND MASCOT OF THE COPA AMERICA

Prize

The winners of the tournament are awarded the Copa América trophy. The first trophy was donated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Ernesto Bosch, in 1910. 

The current Copa América cup was purchased from "Casa Escasany", a jewelry and watchmaking shop in Buenos Aires, at the cost of 3,000 Swiss francs in 1916. The trophy is made of silver which is 20 lbs in weight and 30 inches in height, with a 3-level wooden base that contains several plaques. The plaques are engraved with every winner of the tournament and the edition they won.

Another trophy was produced specially for the Copa America Centenario in 2016 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the competition. It was designed by Epico Studios and manufactured by the English Thomas Lyte in metal, with an internal silver finish and gold plated on the outside. Chile was the champions that year and had the right to keep the trophy in perpetuity.

Copa America Trophy

Mascot

The mascot of this edition of the CONMEBOL Copa America is a conjunction of all the dogs living in South America. His name is Pibe. He was chosen in a vote on social networks by Copa America fans. Pibe is a new South American breed with Argentinian Dad and Colombian Mom. 

Pibe is described as an agile, sociable, tender, funny, and mischievous dog. He loves soccer balls, children, and food as well. He prefers fair play games and understands that sport brings people together.

Copa America 2021 Mascot

HOW ARE THE RULE AND THE FORMAT OF THE COPA AMERICA?

According to the current Copa America fixtures, the final tournament features 12 national teams which compete for over a month in the host nation. Each year, a country in the competition hosts the Copa America in the rotation, giving priority to each of its member associations. Each association confirms whether they will host an edition or not without any obligation. There are two phases: the group stage and the knockout stage in the competition

Group Stage

The draw of the tournament takes place in the host nation. Among 12 teams, three teams including the host are seeded and the rest are selected according to the FIFA World Ranking. They form three groups of four from 4 ranked pots.

Each group plays in a round-robin format. Each team is scheduled for three matches against the other teams in the same group. Unlike other football competitions around the world, the last round of matches of each group is not scheduled at the same time. The top two teams of each group and the two best third-placed teams advance to the knockout stage. The ranking of teams is calculated by points. Since 1995, teams have received 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and no points for a loss.

In details, the ranking of each team in each group is defined as followed:

• the greatest number of points gained in all group matches
• goal difference in all group matches
• the greatest number of goals scored in all group games

If two or more teams are still equal, their ranking is determined as below:

• the greatest number of points obtained in the group matches between the clubs concerned.
• goal difference resulting from the group matches between the clubs concerned 
• greater number of goals got in all groups matches between the clubs concerned
• drawing of lots by the CONMEBOL Organizing Committee 

Knockout Stage

The knockout stage of the Copa America is a single-elimination tournament. Teams play each other in one-legged games. If a match is still tied after 90 minutes of the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match, and after extra time in the final, penalty shootouts will be used to decide the winner.

PERFORMANCE BY COUNTRY IN COPA AMERICA

Until the 2019 season, Uruguay has the most championships in the competition’s history with 15 times getting the prestigious cup. It’s followed by Argentina with 14 cups. Whereas, the current defending champion, Brazil, has 9 winning titles. The specific data of Copa America winners are shown as follows:

*= invited teams 

REFERENCE SOURCES

• https://copaamerica.com/en/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copa_Am%C3%A9rica