Uruguay, Canada square off for third in Copa América

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Wednesday's Uruguay-Colombia match devolved from on-field confrontations to a fracas between players and fans in the seats of Bank of America Stadium.

The last U.S. Census says there are over 1 million people of Colombian descent living in the United States.

It felt like all of them were in uptown Charlotte Wednesday night for the Copa America semifinal that saw their native land’s national team down Uruguay 1-0 to make their third ever Copa final.

That match will pit them against defending champions Argentina in Miami on Sunday.

Bank of America Stadium was awash in sunflower yellow – color of the Colombian national team’s jersey, with most of the 70,644 fans in the building supporting Los Cafeteros. While the stadium has hosted Concacaf Gold Cup games and Mexican national team exhibitions, this was, without question, the highest profile international match hosted by Charlotte.

Considering the traffic and pedestrian flow issues preceding the game hours before kickoff, it was an indication that the NFL, Charlotte FC, or even a Rolling Stones concert, is the same as a major international soccer match. Such is the tribal nature of soccer supporters around the world that it’s exponentially bigger when national pride is on the line.

Next up is the third-place match between Uruguay and Canada on Saturday, where a good but much smaller crowd is expected. Colombia has a population over 52 million. Uruguay’s just under 3.5 million, significantly smaller than the population of metro Atlanta. Though this is Canada’s best international showing since winning the Gold Cup in 2000, that country’s soccer and hockey cultures are not equal.

That this is a third-place match – the European Championship, EURO 2024, has not played a bronze medal match since 1980 – will be as disappointing for Uruguayan fans and players as it is a high-water mark for Canada.

The upside is that this is still a big event, and more seats should be available for local fans to attend the game. It won’t be cheap though. Ticket resale services are showing many between $100-$200, even for the upper deck.

Battle Royale

Perhaps it’s Uruguay’s status as one of the continent’s smaller countries that fuels its fighting spirit. Capable of beautiful and creative soccer, Uruguay always comes on with a foundation of physical play, which defined their quarterfinal win against Brazil and loss to Colombia. Teams that come out of a game against Uruguay without bruises were probably not playing Uruguay.

Colombia showed they could not only take the abuse but dish out some of their own. That did not include the red card (a second yellow) shown to Daniel Munoz just before halftime, when he retaliated with an elbow to the chest after being pinched by an opposing player.

That put Uruguay in an advantage, unless you talk to their coach, Marcelo Bielsa.

"I would have preferred to avoid the sending off of the Colombian player," Bielsa said. "What happened in the second half, given the way in which Colombia had to play to maintain their situation with one man down, created greater challenges than the ones we were facing when they were 11."

Colombia were already ahead a goal at the time, a 40th minute header off a corner kick by Jefferson Lerma. The pinpoint pass was delivered by team captain James Rodriguez for his 6th assist of the tournament, which broke Lionel Messi’s record for a single tournament. Though a man down, Colombia did not sit back and shelter, creating several excellent opportunities to increase the score.

“We played an excellent match. The referee was not good,” said Rodriguez. “The match was very complicated, against a very tough opponent.”

Alcohol and football don’t mix

There was trouble after the match, both on the pitch and in the stands. An exchange of words brought elements of the teams together in anger and frustration, much of it looking to be instigated by Uruguay’s Luis

Suarez, who plays for Inter Miami in MLS. A late sub into the game when Uruguay were chasing an equalizer, Suarez is a gifted goal scorer equally infamous for his temper, which can be mercurial as he embraced several Colombian players while yelling and charging at others.

While what happened on the pitch can be attributed to passion and the mixture of joy and disappointment by either side, what ensued in the stands is inexcusable. A group of alcohol-fueled Colombian fans began to harass and endanger families and friends of the Uruguayan players.

Video showed Colombian fans throwing drink containers and other objects at a Uruguayan contingent seated just behind the benches near midfield. When Charlotte police officers responded, they were caught in the middle. Uruguay players, including Darwin Nunez, Ronald Araujo, and Jose María Gimenez climbed into the stands to pull their families away from the danger.

According to Gimenez in a frantic television interview, this has been an issue at other games as well.

“This is a disaster; our families were in danger,” he said. “We had to rush into the stands to remove our loved ones with tiny newborn babies.”

Conmebol, the South American federation responsible for organization of the tournament issued a statement that read, in part, “The Disciplinary committee of CONMEBOL has opened an investigation to understand the sequence of events and the responsibilities of those involved in the acts of violence that occurred at the end of the match between the national teams of Uruguay and Colombia.
“On the eve of the final of the Copa America, we want to reaffirm and warn that no action will be tolerated that tarnishes this global football celebration.”

A Leeds derby

The third-place match will feature a unique side story. CLTFC coach Dean Smith, who previously managed in the Premier League, said “There will be a lot of Leeds United supporters watching that interestingly.”

The widely respected Bielsa, an Argentine who has given the Uruguayan team more structure, is revered by Leeds supporters for bringing them back to EPL in 2020 but could not keep them competitive.

Fired midseason by the club in 2022, he was replaced by American Jesse Marsch, who couldn’t do much better and lasted until 2023. Marsch, who played 13 years in MLS before moving into coaching in 2010 has since led Canada, which featured 14 MLS players on its Copa roster, further in the tournament than any other Concacaf team.

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