The Copa America is the most prestigous International competition in South America. It should be notice that numerous times in recent years teams from outside of South America have been invited.
Copa America Football Tournament – History Guide
This has included the United States and Japan. Known initially as the South American Football Championship it is the oldest International football competition in the world. In this article we are going to take a short look at the history of the competition, look at the previous winners, take a look at some of the tournament records. If you like to have a punt on the football we also have a fantastic list of the Best Sites on the market for when it comes to having a bet.
A Brief History Of The Copa America
The first Copa America was officially hosted in 1916 by Argentina. The competition was regularly held on an annual basis but after the 1930 world cup in Uruguay issues between themselves and Argentina prevented the competition being held as regularly. There often political conflicts, teams entering lesser sides, tournaments deemed unofficial and at one point an eight year absence for the competition.
It returned in 1975 when it gained the title of Copa America. The tournament was somewhat different to today and was held throughout the year in all of the countries involved. From this point the competition was held every four years until 1987.
From 1987 it was hosted every other year all of the way up to 2001. It was also hosted in once country as a tournament format from this point. For a period of time it started to be held every three years but reverted back to four years in 2007. The exception of this was 2016 competition used to celebrate the 100-year anniversary. It was in fact hosted in the United States, the first time it had been held outside of South America.
Copa America Winners
A total of eight teams have been successful in the entire history of the Copa America however only three teams have won the competition more than twice. Unsurprisingly these are Uruguay (15), Argentina (14), and Brazil (9). Paraguay, Chile and Peru have also lifted the trophy twice whilst Columbia and Bolivia have also been successful once.
Uruguay have a tremendous record in finals having won 15 of the 21 they have contested. Conversely Argentina only have a 50% record in finals with Brazil winnings slightly less than half of the finals they have contested.
The only team to have appeared in a final and not yet lifted the trophy is Mexico. They have lost both of their finals.
With regards to the amount of goals scored by a country in the competition Argentina are well ahead on 462 compared to Uruguay’s 406. This despite the fact Argentina have played six less games in the competition.
Four teams have played in the competition and are yet to win a game, those teams are Japan, Qatar, Jamaica and Haiti.
