Every two years, I look forward to Copa America. The best qualifying South American teams play against each other for the championship. The tournament is held in one of the ten host countries members of The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL), also one of the world 6 FIFA Confederations. Within the CONMEBOL umbrella, runs two club competitions which are Copa Libertadores that started in 1960, and Copa SudAmericana which started in 1988. The third was Copa CONMEBOL started in 1992 and was abolished soon after. The forth and final tournament is The Copa Libertadores femenina – Feminine Liberator Cup, for national club member teams, started in 2009. The first Copa America was held in Argentine in 1916. Originally known as Campeonato SudAmericano De Futbol, created and representing the Argentina’s Independence day on, July 6, 1916.
All pictures included in this post are courtesy of ca2015.com.
The ten South American countries having national teams participating in Copa America in Chile 2015, are as follows, in alphabetical order: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. CONMEBOL’s headquarters was in Luque, Paraguay, recently relocated to Santiago, Chile. The CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifiers games are said to be the toughest qualifier games in the world, due their simplistic round robin system, aggressive competitiveness, difficult climate & geographical conditions. While allowing prestigious admittance to this tournament thus includes some of the few and top national soccer teams in the world. The two additional countries that were invited to participate in Copa America 2015 were, not part of CONMEBOL are, Mexico and Jamaica. They both are under The Confederation Of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football , CONCACAF, which is also one of the 6 FIFA Confederations.
All pictures included in this post are courtesy of ca2015.com.
The Copa America 2015 games were held in the following Cities in Chile: Santiago – the Capital, Concepcion in the south, Viña Del Mar at beach side, La Serena – industrialized, Antofagasta – the Northern Pearl, Rancagua-home to wineries and rodeo, Temuco-glacier mountains, and Valparaiso – World Heritage Port. All the venues were specially prepared for Copa America 2015 using high quality natural turf grass, engineered specifically for soccer. As you may have been watching the tournament, Chile took the 2015 Cup. They played exceptional in every game and this is their first Copa Amercia championship. Congratulations to The Chilean Team, well deserved.
I love soccer and enjoy watching it for its eye-hand-body coordination, played like no other sport. What sport do you enjoy watching? I would love to hear the sport you love. Kindly drop me a note in the comment section below.