Unlike in the European Championship, third place is competed for in the Copa America and the battle for it will take place in Brasilia on Friday evening when Colombia go up against Peru for the right to finish on the podium.
These two sides were beaten in their semi-finals but both ran one of the powerhouses of South American football close and can be proud of their effort. To win here and come away in third place will represent a decent tournament.
Colombia
Colombia lost out in the most heart-breaking way in that semi-final when they were by Argentina on penalties. To be fair to them they were a little fortunate to make it that far with Argentina missing some gilt-edged chances in normal time to put them away but having got there, to then go out will have hurt. They now need to put that disappointment behind them and get themselves back up again to attempt to finish third.
Hopefully the fact that there isn’t the competitive chance to win the tournament pressure on them here will free them up and let us really see the pace, quality and dynamism that they have in attacking areas. They have made it through to this stage largely despite disappointing in the attacking areas so it would be nice to see what they’ve got. They’ve shown to be tough to break down which has been a positive for them.
Peru
To be fair to Peru, there weren’t many who were giving them a chance in their semi-final against Brazil and although those people ended up being correct, you couldn’t say Brazil were as convincing against them as they were expected to be. In fact, Peru created some great chances to force an equaliser but couldn’t quite put the ball in the back of the net. That was unlike them because that was the one thing they had done well in the tournament prior to then.
It was a weird semi-final that one because the one thing Peru haven’t done well in this tournament is defend yet Brazil never really opened them up very often so I’m not overly sure what to make of that really. It will be interesting to see whether Peru want this match more. Finishing third was always going to be a big achievement for them whereas you could argue that their opponents have underachieved even if they win here.
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Team News
Colombia will be without Mateus Uribe for this match as he has a muscle problem which could leave Duvan Zapata and Miguel Borja as the leading lights although Rangers forward Alfredo Morelos will be looking for game time.
Peru have no new injury problems to contend with so there is a chance that they will be at full strength here because Andre Carillo has served the suspension which forced him to miss the semi-final and is available again.
Betting
Whenever these third place matches come along in tournaments I always favour the over in them. This is a match that nobody really likes playing for but the pressure coming off usually leads to a few goals being scored and I don’t expect these two to let us down in that regard. They’ve already placed once in the tournament when Peru won 2-1 and that was in a group stage where teams were looking to keep some energy for the knockout stages.
There are certainly goals in both of these sides. We haven’t seen enough of the Colombia attacking prowess in this competition but it is clearly there, you only have to look down their squad to detect that. We have seen the full force of the Peru attack and often that has come while leaving themselves exposed defensively. Hopefully both these sides have a good go at the other and we end up with an entertaining match as the prelude to the final.
Tips
Back Over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Sky Bet
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