Argentina is once again champion of America

Lionel Messi for Argentina and Argentina for Lionel Messi. All the joy that the number 10 gave to the Albiceleste was returned this time: a team with a musketeer spirit gave a new title to its number 10. With its captain injured and in tears on the bench for the last 25 minutes of the second half, plus the entire extra time, the world champion team beat Colombia 1-0 in a dramatic final in Miami and was crowned two-time Copa América champion. Argentina is now the biggest continental winner, with 16 stars, one more than Uruguay.

The continental title won in Brazil 2021 was followed this Sunday by the victorious defence at USA 2024, an edition marked by controversy from start to finish, also this Sunday in the run-up to the decisive match. If the Albiceleste had walked until three years ago through a long desert without titles, 28 between 1993 and 2021, now the Olympic laps only seem sky blue and white.

The goal by Lautaro Martínez, the tournament’s top scorer with five goals, six minutes into the second extra time, unlocked a very close duel and gave a historic Argentine team a triple title without precedent in South America: two Copa Américas (2021 and 2024) and a World Cup (Qatar 2022) in between. Only Spain, on the other side of the ocean, achieved a similar feat between 2008 and 2012, with two Euro Cups and a World Cup. Lionel Scaloni’s team also won another title played in a single match during this period, the 2022 Finalísima (3-0 against Italy at Wembley), also called the Conmebol-UEFA Champions Cup. Precisely, Argentina and Spain, the new European champion, will face each other in 2025 in a new edition between the continental kings.

The final had a twist, with Messi’s injured exit 20 minutes into the second half: the image of his right ankle swollen like a tennis ball brought to mind Diego Maradona in Italy 1990. After a Copa América in which he tried to overcome biology – 37 years old -, a physical state that felt the lack of competitiveness of the MLS and the terrible playing fields of the United States, with the patched grass, the number 10 went to the substitutes’ bench in tears, in another moving image of the night.

Just like Cristiano Ronaldo in the last Euro Cup, Messi had already cried in the other Copa America final in the United States, in 2016 against Chile. For Argentines, a tournament in the United States seemed to have a tragic fate: Diego Maradona ended his World Cup with one of his most iconic phrases, “they cut off my legs.” But the last image, however, would be happy, exuberant, with Messi once again lifting the Cup, sharing it with the also veterans Ángel Di María and Nicolás Otamendi. If the number 10 had lost three finals between 2014 and 2015, now he has won four in a row.

While the match marked the glorious end to Di María’s career with the Albiceleste, there are still two years to go before it is confirmed whether Messi, now 39, will play in the 2026 World Cup, also in the United States, where FIFA will have to review a large part of a Copa América that will go down in history for having been played in defiance of football culture. In between, there will also be the Final.

A superb Colombia, which had perhaps reached the Copa final as the best team in the Cup, also lived up to expectations in the final and had several chances to win, but Argentina showed that champions must be beaten by knockout. Néstor Lorenzo’s team also lost a historic unbeaten streak of 28 matches. Football still owes a strong title to Colombia, continental champion only in 2001, at home. As a consolation, the reborn James Rodríguez – at 33 years old – was rightly chosen as the best player of the Cup.

After the 83-minute delay in the last disorganization between Conmebol and the host country –this time to prevent the behavior of South American fans-, Colombia began the night in accordance with what the event dictated: the most important match in its history. Argentina is a team inspired by a Jorge Luis Borges story, a compadrito, a knife-wielding teammate, difficult to intimidate, but even so the boys from the Buenos Aires team Lorenzo imposed their conditions at the beginning. In the first half, the yellow team played more like the blue and white team wanted: the Colombians were playing the duel of their lives and the second half, a final. The result: 45 minutes to watch with a cardiac Holter.

With Messi – at his physical limit throughout the Cup – surrounded, the match began to be played closer to Emiliano Dibu Martínez’s goal than Camilo Vargas’. James started well, incisive with assists to that lightning bolt named Luis Díaz, but in a duel of braves, the first half was ideal for a cacique like Richard Ríos, the midfielder of Palmeiras of Brazil who until he was 18 was only a futsal player, to stand out. Jefferson Lerma, his teammate in the centre circle, also showed his handsomeness, making the Aston Villa goalkeeper tumble with shots from medium distance.

In that period, nothing was more dangerous than Jhon Córdoba’s header against the post, while Argentina boxed out the match more than it played, always on guard, but also with the cunning of a champion waiting for his moment: that’s how Messi shot at what seemed like a goal and the ball hit Julián Álvarez himself. All the drama that had taken place before was repeated when Messi suffered a blow – typical of the game, without bad intention – from Santiago Arias and was left lying down for long seconds holding his right ankle: the number 10 is not one to fake pain and for a moment there were fears for his continuity in the game, to the point that Lionel Scaloni sent in Lautaro Martínez – the unexpected hero – as an eventual substitute.

However, Messi preferred to wait for the longest halftime in the world, 25 minutes, when Conmebol – in an unforgettable Copa América, and not for being good – finished turning soccer into American football during its visit to the United States: Shakira’s concert was a Super Bowl-style show, another local intrusion into a sport that does not need this type of spectacle. It had not happened in the 1994 World Cup or in the 2016 Copa América.

When the match resumed, it was worth remembering that it was still 0-0, but then all the tension reached the penalty areas: Colombia and Argentina had at least a couple of chances to score in the first 20 minutes, including a handball by Davinson Sánchez in the area that neither the Brazilian referee Raphael Claus nor the VAR considered a penalty. Vargas also stood out against an attempt by Di María, in his last match with the Argentine national team, but the match was broken by the injury, now definitive, of Messi.

The body of the number 10, at 37 years old and after a season in an athletic league but far from high-performance sports like the MLS, collapsed when he was chasing Luis Díaz: Messi immediately asked for a change and grabbed his left thigh, although on the substitutes’ bench he was seen with ice on his deformed right ankle. Perhaps the terrible playing fields influenced the two injuries that Messi suffered in the tournament, first against Chile and then against Colombia. The number 10, who played his fifth Copa América final – 2007, 2015, 2016 and 2021 – and did not score any goals in any of them, cried for long minutes on the bench.

Against all expectations, Nicolás González came on very well for Messi and Argentina went on to show the best of the night, as if his teammates were swearing to win for their absent captain. Everything that Messi had done for his teammates, this time his teammates did for Messi: Argentina recited the 11 musketeers. It even seemed that Colombia felt the impact of the Argentine number 10’s exit and began to show a respect that it had not had until then. Argentina finished the 90 minutes wanting more against a worn-out rival that, already in the end, was content with extra time.

With a great Rodrigo de Paul in midfield, Scaloni’s last three changes, all in the first half of extra time, would end up being decisive: a play built around a great recovery by Leandro Paredes, a better pass by Giovani Lo Celso and a precise finish by Lautaro Martínez scored the 1-0, when it seemed that the match was heading to penalties. If Colombia had had a better start, Argentina showed its champion essence and a much more complete ending.

Messi, now dry of tears, showed his first smile of the night and lifted another Cup. Argentina is a two-time champion and a multiple champion. Messi has someone to defend him.

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