Covid 19 / Football / Sports

World Cup qualifier: Brazil, Argentina clash halted

Brazil’s World Cup qualifier against Argentina has been suspended after the Brazilian health authorities and police entered the field of play to detain four Argentinian players who failed to quarantine after entering the country.

In utterly surreal scenes, the game was halted on Sunday after 10 minutes following the incident.

Prior to kick off, Premier League quartet: Emiliano Martinez, Cristian Romero, Giovani Lo Celso and Emiliano Buendia, were investigated by the Brazilian authorities for a breach of coronavirus regulations.

It was alleged that they failed to declare that they had been in England prior to arriving in Brazil.

Following an investigation it seemed that the foursome were in the clear with Lo Celso and Romero both starting the game, while Martinez and Buendia were named on the bench.

However, in the opening exchanges, Brazilian health officials stormed the pitch in an attempt to detain the players.

Following close to an hour of stalemate, CONMEBOL finally released a statement on the matter, which read: “By decision of the match referee, the match organized by FIFA between Brazil and Argentina for the World Cup Qualifiers is suspended.

“The referee and the match commissioner will submit a report to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, which will determine the steps to be followed. These procedures strictly adhere to current regulations.

“The World Cup Qualifiers is a FIFA competition. All decisions concerning its organization and development are the exclusive power of that institution.”

Soon after this press release was penned, Claudio Tapia, the president of the Argentine Football Association, issued his own statement.

“You cannot talk about any lie here because there is health legislation under which all South American tournaments are played. The health authorities of each country approved a protocol that we have been fully complying with,” it read.

“What happened today is unfortunate for football, it is a very bad image. Four people entered to interrupt the game to make a notification and CONMEBOL asked the players to go to the locker room.”

Head coach Lionel Scaloni added: “It should have been a …

Football / Sports

Brazil beat Peru 1 – 0 and advance to Copa America Final

Brazil have stormed through to the Copa America Final yet again after a near flawless tournament, where they went undefeated through six games — scoring 12 goals and conceding just two in the process.

Eder Militao has not featured much in the last few games as Brazil head coach Tite has gone with Thiago Silva and Marquinhos at the back. Meanwhile Vinicius, until now, had played just 32 minutes in this tournament. Both players started this game on the bench, but did enter the game through a triple sub in the 84th minute when they, along with Fabinho, replaced Fred, Richarlison, and Renan Lodi.

Casemiro though, featured from the start, and played the full 90 minutes on the right side of a double pivot alongside Manchester United midfielder Fred. He was involved in several nice attacking sequences and one-touch passing plays in the first half as he combined well with Lucas Paqueta, Neymar, and Richarlison. Those four in particular were huge instigators in attack as Brazil carved Peru over and over again in the first half. Peru, defending in a 5-4-1, kept everyone behind the ball apart from striker Gianluca Lapadula. Thus, they struggled getting any attacks in transition, and even though they tried to stay compact defensively, struggled to limit space between the lines for Brazil’s runners to find space in. They also allowed both Casemiro and Fred to pick out all the passes they wanted without being pressured. Casemiro had two long distance stingers which forced saves from Peruvian goalkeeper Pedro Gallese.

Brazil opened the scoring though Paqueta in the 35th minute after some sorcery from Neymar.

Brazil looked set to steamroll a helpless Peru side. But at half-time, their head coach Ricardo Gareca made two subs to advance his team’s shape. Most notably, the entrance of attacking midfielder Raziel Garcia for one of his defenders provided some help for Lapadula in attack and immediately brought Peru back into the game. They got better opportunities in transition, were able to keep the ball better, and gave Casemiro — …