Chile who were the two-time defending champions, having won the 2015 and 2016 editions lost their semi-final match against Peru with 3-0 scores. Thus, this leads Chile to out of the competition and Peru to the finals.
Chile coach Reinaldo Rueda on their big loss said, “We entered the match already thinking about the final and that’s how we allowed Peru to surprise us,”
He further added, “We didn’t show the attitude and aggressiveness from the previous matches.”
Chile entered the tournament as one of the strongest teams and defending champions as well but in spite a team without the similar quality as Chile, it was Peru that got off to a great start and dominated the competition early on.
Peru from the begging of the match took the lead of 20 minutes when a corner from the right was moved on to Edison Flores, who volleyed home at the back post.
“Peru played well, they deserve to be in the final,” said Chilean midfielder Gary Medel. “That hurts as we wanted to win another title. We had chances in the second half but we couldn’t convert them.”
Peru striker Paolo Guerrero said, “When this team wants something, it works hard and gets it. We deserved to make it to the final. We were fully focused from the start.”
“I think we all played well, we all made sacrifices,” Guerrero further said. “We were very intense and we deserve to be in the final. Now we need to rest and think of Brazil. It’ll be a very hard final.”
At the first half, Chile was not in their best form but was much better in the second half but their all their efforts at goal were either off target or safely controlled by Pedro Gallese in the Peruvian net. Captain Paolo Guerrero covered the scoring in stoppage time in advance Gallese finished his perfect night by saving a dinked penalty from Eduardo Vargas.
Brazil, on the other hand, has defeated Argentina by 2-0 on July 2 and has qualified for the 2019 Copa America Finals where they will face Peru on the other side on the finale.
“We knew that it would be difficult because of the players they have,” said Brazil’s Casemiro after winning the semi-final match against Argentina. “It’s about details. We knew it would be scrappy and that there would be wind-ups and time wasting. But we have to congratulate our strikers who did a great job. When they got chances, they scored.”
In the meantime, both the teams such as Brazil and Peru are enjoying their exceptional win right now as well as their entry to the 2019 Copa America Finals but now both the teams have to give the best shot in their next match as it is the final round on July 7 at Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro where the ultimate winner of 2019 Copa America will take the title trophy to their homeland.
On the other hand, the teams who didn’t qualify to the finals that is Argentina and Chile will face-off each other for the Third place play-off round on 6 July 2019 at Arena Corinthians, São Paulo.
