The bronze medals will be won at the Copa America on Saturday night when the two sides who lost out in the semi-final meet in Charlotte when Canada conclude their best tournament to date against Uruguay.
This is the match that no team really wants to play as they arrived at the tournament to win it but for Canada who have a lack of competitive matches between now and the World Cup it is at least a chance to play a game with some kind of meaning.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Premier Sports 1 channel in the UK with the coverage getting underway at 12.50am ahead of the kick off at 1am.
Canada
I think if you had offered Canada a shot at third place in the competition before a ball was kicked in it, while they wouldn’t have shouted about it from the rooftops, I think they would have taken it because they knew that they were in the same half of the draw as Argentina and unless someone shocked them it was always going to be hard to get to the final. Then when you factor in the lack of game time under Jesse Marsch, all things considered a shot at third place is more than acceptable.
Canada have offered some good things in this tournament and if they were a little more ruthless in and around the opposing penalty box then they could easily have won matches a little easier than they have done. The fact remains though that they go into this consolation match with the only team to have beaten them being Argentina. A win here would further show that they are on the right track two years out from hosting the biggest tournament in world football.
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Uruguay
I do think when Uruguay arrived in America for the tournament that they would have had their eyes set firmly on winning the title. Brazil are in a dry spell for themselves at the minute so they were in the better half of the draw and before the draw came into play, more importantly they were in the easier of the four groups which they were expected to cruise through, which they duly did. Unfortunately for them they came up against a Colombia side who are really on song.
Uruguay are another team who are probably guilty of letting some chances go but they go into this match battle hardened when you consider that in the knockout stages they have taken on Brazil and Colombia. Third might not be seen as a massive achievement but this is a Uruguay side under transition after the heroes of 2010 have largely come and gone. Marcelo Bielsa is probably primed with having them peaking in the World Cup so whatever happens here they are on the right track.
Betting
This has all the hallmarks of one of those wacky Uruguay games where they are just relentless going forward and don’t really worry about the consequences going the other way. There is no competitive pressure on either side here and two coaches who are front footed and look to get the ball forward and score goals have the ideal chance to get their teams out to look to entertain and if they unite like they could then this could be a pulsating consolation match.
The problem with going with goals is we would be relying on ordinary finishers to do the business for us so rather than do that and end up pulling my hair out I’ll just take the match shots here. There might well be a few pot shots in this one as players look for a bit of glory in a game with no jeopardy on it but both defences just look like they are beginning to feel the pace of what has been a pretty relentless schedule. You can get odds against on over 23.5 shots in this one and that looks good to me.
Tips
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