Lautaro Martinez gave Argentina back-to-back Copa América titles and a 3rd straight main match win together with his further time strike Sunday evening.
Martinez scored his fifth objective of the match within the 112th minute for a 1-0 win over Colombia at Onerous Rock Stadium. Martinez broke towards the Colombia objective and shot throughout the objective from the precise to beat Colombia goalkeeper Camilo Vargas.
Martinez’s objective got here simply minutes after he entered the sport within the 97th minute as a part of a triple substitution for Argentina. His 5 objectives led all scorers at Copa América and three of them got here after he entered the sport instead.
Argentina performed almost half the sport with out Lionel Messi due to the additional 30-minute interval after a 0-0 impasse on the finish of regulation.
Messi left the sport within the sixty fifth minute after he crumpled to the bottom whereas chasing the ball. He appeared to know immediately that he was injured. It didn’t take lengthy for the bench to prepared a substitute within the type of Nicolas Gonzalez.
Messi limped off the sphere and not using a shoe on his proper foot and shortly slumped to his seat on the bench. Not lengthy after he sat down, he broke down in tears, maybe acutely conscious that Sunday evening’s sport might be his final main match look for his house nation.
The seriousness of Messi’s ankle damage turned clear to viewers at house at first of additional time when TV cameras zoomed in on the swollen joint.
Not lengthy after Martinez scored, Angel Di Maria was subbed off for Nicolas Otamendi within the 117th minute. Sunday’s sport was the ultimate for Di Maria in an Argentina uniform and he too was in tears after leaving the pitch. After he received to the Argentina bench, Di Maria shared a hug with a smiling Messi.
The victory is the sixteenth Copa América title for the defending World Cup champions. Argentina gained the match in 2021 with a 1-0 win over Brazil in what was the primary main match win of the Messi period. A yr later, Argentina took down France in penalty kicks within the World Cup Closing to cap an illustrious profession for a person who might be the best soccer participant ever.
Messi didn’t retire from worldwide responsibility after the World Cup and located himself taking part in Sunday evening’s sport in the identical metropolis the place he at the moment performs his membership soccer for Inter Miami. However he struggled to make a lot of an affect in his time on the sphere and was additionally briefly injured on a sort out within the first half.
Colombia completed the sport with extra possession and photographs, although Argentina was the extra harmful workforce for a lot of the sport. Sunday evening was Colombia’s third look in a Copa América ultimate because it regarded for its second win. Colombia misplaced in its first title sport look in 1975 and gained the match because the host nation in 2001.
Sport delayed and marred by safety breaches
Kickoff was delayed over an hour after chaos on the gates and within the concourses at Onerous Rock Stadium. With no perimeter across the stadium, followers crowded the gates to get into the stadium hours earlier than the sport.
A lot of these followers didn’t appear to have tickets and that led to horrible scenes all throughout the stadium. At first, match organizers’ answer was to shut the gates to everybody. After which, not lengthy earlier than kickoff, the choice was made to open the will get to anybody as tickets have been apparently not scanned in any respect.
Through the sport CONCACAF, North America soccer’s governing physique, made it clear that it did not have something to do with the match. Copa América is run by CONMEBOL, South America’s governing physique.
Here is how the match unfolded in real-time:
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FINAL rating: Argentina 1-0 Colombia
112′ – Lautaro Martínez finds the online with an help from Giovani Lo Celso.
