DPA/Santiago
Argentina are set to play today at the Copa America their second final in a year, and they hope to do better than when they lost the World Cup to Germany in Brazil 2014.
The blue-and-whites, who have won the World Cup twice in their history and the Copa America 14 times, face hosts Chile, who have never won either tournament.
In this context, Argentina are clearly the favourites to lift the trophy in Santiago’s national stadium, but they insist that anything can happen.
“Statistics don’t count in a final,” Argentina captain Lionel Messi warned.
One might assume he would know, since he has won plenty with Barcelona including four in the Champions League. With the national team, however, he lost the decisive game in the 2007 Copa America and again in last year’s World Cup, and he is hoping third time may indeed be lucky.
This year alone, Messi and team-mate Mascherano have won the La Liga, King’s Cup and Champions League treble, and the Copa America would make the year professionally perfect for them.
There is a certain sense that a generation with Messi, Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez, Angel Di Maria and many others should not reach retirement without giving Argentina a senior title they have not won since 1993. Their chances are unlikely to get much better than the match against Chile.
“We have been doing things well for quite some time, and we deservedly need to be able to leave our mark with a title,” said Di Maria, who missed last year’s World Cup final due to injury.
“We really want to win it,” Messi said.
Chile, under their Argentinian-born coach Jorge Sampaoli, have vowed to stand by their attack-oriented play, even if the defensive mistakes that are associated with it may be particularly dangerous against Argentina’s world-class forwards.
“We are not scared,” said Chile captain Claudio Bravo.
He too has won everything this year at Barcelona, although he was only the team’s starting keeper in La Liga, and he fancies Chile’s chances.
“We have a good opportunity, playing at home in front of our fans,” Bravo said.
A good portion of that opportunity may rest with Chile’s star striker, Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez, who has performed well below expectations at the Copa America so far.
“We hope to have Alexis at his best. What we need to do is to get him back to that level, because he is vital for us,” Sampaoli admitted.
For years, there has been talk of Messi failing to perform with Argentina as he did with Barcelona, but he played a great match in the semi-final against Paraguay.
Messi has not scored in the knock-out rounds of a tournament with Argentina for eight years, since the 2007 Copa America semi-finals. He failed to net the ball at all in the 2010 World Cup and the 2011 Copa America, and in Brazil 2014 he only scored in the group round.
While he clearly finds it more difficult to score goals with the national team, he provides vision of play and assists more concretely, and at the Copa America no one is complaining.
“I think a player like Leo has the ability to be important whatever the match demands of him,” said coach Gerardo Martino. “He does not need to be the team’s top scorer to be happy.”
And yet Argentina clearly hope he can contribute a goal or two against Chile.
At the Copa America, Argentina drew against Paraguay and then beat Uruguay and Jamaica in the group round. In the quarter-finals, they wasted many chances and drew 0-0 against Colombia in regulation time before going through in the penalty shootout, and they dealt Paraguay a 6-1 thrashing in the semifinals.
Chile beat Ecuador and Bolivia and drew against Mexico in the group round, and then controversially eliminated a 10-man Uruguay in the quarter-finals. In the semi-finals, they overcame Peru, who played three quarters of the game with 10 men too.
In the final, the two countries will compete on eagerness. Chile have been runners-up at the Copa America four times and are desperate to win the first major title in their history. Argentina want to get over the bitterness of last year’s World Cup defeat with a trophy.
Only one of them will have their way.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi (centre), Sergio Aguero (left) and Javier Mascherano jog during a training session in Concepcion, Chile.
