Football at all hours. With the Euro Cup ball in play since last week, this Thursday the Copa América ball begins to roll. The national team competitions of the two continents that dominate the football universe overlap almost perfectly until the finals of both on July 14. There will be up to six national team matches on the same day. While Bellingham and Mbappé attract the spotlight in Europe, Messi’s Argentina and Vinicius’ Brazil – with the permission of a Colombia on a roll and an always competitive Uruguay – start as favorites in a competition held in the United States, a country where Soccer is trying to gain ground with the Argentine star as ambassador.
Messi arrives at the competition at the twilight of his career, when he has abandoned elite football to take refuge in Inter Miami, current leader of the MLS. The Argentine has not completely ruled out the 2026 World Cup, which will also be played in the United States, but, about to turn 37, this could be his last high-level national team competition. Messi, however, shines in his twilight more than most footballers in their heyday and arrives at the tournament without the unfinished business of the national team, after Argentina’s triumph in the 2021 Copa América and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Argentina is much more than Messi. Scaloni has an enviable midfield, with Enzo Fernández, Alexis Mac Allister and Rodrigo de Paul, with Guido Rodríguez, Exequiel Palacios and Giovani Lo Celso in attendance. He also has an experienced defense, in whose axis Cuti Romero and Nicolás Otamendi will try to protect the charismatic Dibu Martínez. Lautaro and Di María, this one on his farewell to the national team, will accompany Messi in the scoring aspect.
A total of 16 teams divided into four groups participate in the competition. To the 10 South American countries of Conmebol, which organizes the competition, six invited teams from Concacaf (North America, Central America and the Caribbean) are added, turning the tournament into a true continental struggle.
Unlike the Euro Cup, where the results of the group stage can completely alter the route to the final, the Copa América divides the teams into two blocks that run in parallel and cannot meet until the final. Argentina has a relatively clear path. The rivals in their group, A, are Canada (with whom they debut this Thursday in Atlanta in the opening match), Chile and Peru. And only the rivals from group B can stand in their way to the final in Miami: Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela and Jamaica.
The other block seems more competitive. When talking about national team football, Brazil is always a reference to take into account, although the team has gone through a period of crisis since its elimination on penalties in the quarterfinals of the World Cup in Qatar against Croatia. Instability has accompanied the team in the qualifying phase for the 2026 World Cup, although the arrival of Dorival Junior on the bench seems to have calmed the waters.
Brazil arrives in the United States without Neymar, but with Vinicius in a state of grace. The 23-year-old forward from Real Madrid, however, has not performed in the national team at the level of his club. He has only scored 3 goals in his 30 games with the canarinha. Madrid’s new signing, Endrick, 17, has matched him in the four games he has played with the national team this year, in all of them starting as a substitute. A very Real Madrid forward also has Rodrigo, who in principle should accompany Vinicius as a starter. Allison in goal, Marquinhos and Beraldo in defense, Guimaraes, João Gomes and Paqueta in midfield and Raphinha as a midfielder certify a rejuvenated Brazilian candidacy from which, in addition to Neymar, Casemiro, Thiago Silva and Gabriel Jesús have dropped out.
On his way, however, he comes across the unbeatable Colombia, which has accumulated an impressive streak of 23 games and more than two years without defeat. The team of Professor Néstor Lorenzo, the Argentine coach who has led it in the last 20, beat Spain and Germany in friendlies and Brazil in an official match. Recently, he beat the United States (5-1) in Washington in a preparation match for the tournament, which had just tied with Brazil. With an effective defense, with Mojica, Carlos Cuesta and Lucumí; A midfield commanded by John Arias and James Rodríguez, plus Luis Díaz in the midfield and Santos Borré as a center forward, Colombia faces the challenge of measuring up in a high-level competition.
Brazil and Colombia are in group D, where they should have no problem beating Paraguay and Costa Rica. The two qualifiers will meet the first in group C, where Uruguay and the United States are favorites against Panama and Bolivia. The Uruguayan team equals Argentina in competition titles, with 15, and although it seems a step below Brazil and Colombia, Marcelo Bielsa trusts Araújo and Giménez in defense; Valverde and Nicolás de la Cruz in the midfield, and Darwin Núñez and Luis Suárez in attack to aim for the best. Luis Suárez, 37, maintains the killer instinct and the illusion: “I enjoy it as if it were the first time and as if it were the last,” he said in a recent television interview. At the rally, he was received as a hero.
For any other team to reach the final in Miami would break the mold. The host country, the United States, and Mexico (which will also play almost at home, in southern states) aspire to surprise. With the Copa América, the 2025 Club World Cup and, above all, the 2026 World Cup, football is trying to conquer the world’s leading power, where messimanía It has been quite a shock. Behind Brazil and Mexico, the United States is the third country with the largest number of Latinos, great allies in increasing the popularity of the beautiful sport.
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