Lionel Messi breaks Copa America all time appearance record

By
Roy Nemer
-
20

Lionel Messi has broken the Copa America all time appearance record.

Messi has now played the most Copa America matches. Argentina vs. Canada was match 35 at a Copa America for Argentina, making him the player with the all time most appearances.

He was previously tied on 34 matches with Chile’s Sergio Livingstone.

The Argentine has now played in seven Copa’s America, having played his first match in 2007 against the United States.

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20 Comments

  2. I honestly thought Messi’s pace was good, not great but good, 3-4 occasions he ran to collect the ball behind their last man and should have scored, DiMaria on the other hand was slower than usual. The game could have easily ended 4-0 or 4-1 had it not for their sloppiness.

    Look at her highness who is supposed to be a physical specimen and he barely does any running, stands Infront of goal looking for scraps.

  3. Main problem Scaloni is facing right now is full backs. All the current full backs are very mediocre. Most of european team have great fullbacks. But for Argentina I haven’t seen any good fullback.

    • Tagliafico is a solid fullback, a balanced one, good defensively and can also add an offensive thrust if needed. Does not have the dribbling and crossing of Acuna on his best day but does the job. Molina’s defensive performances are hit or miss…Acuna also is not known to be amazing defensively

        • Tagliafico is solid defensively and from time to time does come up with great through balls. He is not good with possession or scoring accuracy though. So a player combining the skills of Acuna and Tagliafico is needed for Argentina. I am more concerned with right back. Molina is showing signs of slowing down. In the first half most of Canada’s attack beat him and same thing happened in our match against Uruguay last year.

  4. Take aways from the game. Messi needs couple of matches to match the speed of good teams. He has enjoyed the comfort of MLS for too long. He was horrible with the 1-1s with the goalkeeper. However, Messi being Messi made up all that with two sublime passes both resulting in goals. Coming to the mortals, Di Maria was surprisingly off-colour through-out. He could have sealed the game much earlier. His final touch was poor in that 1-1 with the goalkeeper. I hope he plays better in the next game. Else Scaloni should get someone younger and faster to replace him. Molina was two persons in the two halves. In the first half he was slow and struggled against a pacy Canada. In the second half, he got back his composure. Acuna was just the opposite. He ran out of steam in the second half and Scaloni could have replaced him much earlier. He gave up too many loose balls back to Canada and all became threats to Cuti and Licha. I am not sure why Julian got the man of the match. Other than the goal he did not have as much impact as Lautaro had in his cameo. But, of course, goals matter the most in football and Julian did score. MacAllister was very good. De Paul was much better than how he played in the first two games in the World Cup. Canada has exposed our weaknesses like Uruguay did last year though we had this scoreline in our favour. This was the first match and on a bad turf. Let’s see what strategy Scaloni has in his mind for the next one.

  5. I noticed the lack of pace in Messi and even Di Maria last night as well. I love both of them to death, but I think having a Garnacho type player instead of Di Maria would have helped.

    I am worried about Molina as well, but I hope he comes through because we don’t really have a good backup unless Carboni just decides to shine and gets played there.

  7. Yesterday’s match was a good hard-fought battle and Canada really highlighted the areas that needs to be addresed by Scaloni. Beside the poor finshing and losing posession in dangerous areas multiple time, another one is obviously the age factor. We have two 36+ year old high up the field playing as forwards, both still world class but with signigicant reduction in pace, which is why Canada opted to play a high line defense to trap them offiside. Hopefully, Scaloni has seen it and will make the necessary changes so that Messi, has two fast players on both flanks to receive his passes and cut them back to him. Also, beside the poor pitch, both Dimaria and Messi were holding on to the ball to long waiting for keeper to move forward which is why they may have missed the three 1-1 chances yesterday. Again, Scaloni has already indicated he is aware of the age and speed which is why he has dropped Otamendi , because we can’t have too many aging players like 2018 , otherwise a fast and young team will wreak havoc on us. Since we started off with a win , Scaloni now has the luxury to test more players in the next two game to find a balanced starting xi for the knockouts. He might start Nico for Dimaria or start both Julian and Lautaro and bench Dimaria in the next match.

  8. Welcome back all out brethren and hermanos who have re joined us for the cup.
    Olive, Choripan, falcon, showvar etc…. either I havnt noticed your posts or long time no see. Welcome back .
    I have a couple things to say, some controversial…
    1. I did cook to start the Copa of course, beef! Next game lamb.
    2. I rode around downtown with Argentina jersey and speaker on my fixed gear bike.
    3. Everyone played well, I wasn’t happy with locelso tho. A couple of bad passes, and a challenge that could have gotten him a red if the ref was more strict. Even di maria was a bit off last night surprisingly.
    4. I liked how scalonis transitioned our formation in the end, the old men I watched the game with predicted otamendi coming in for paredes somehow … But I felt that in a game like this you want to bring in a pest on offense… Such as Garnacho. Otamendi played more offense then defense and could have scored twice.
    5 our hardest game in this group will be vs Chile. They want blood, and their aging group will have something to prove. We need to score early and play our style.
    6. Second half scaloni reminded the team about our style of play, quick passes, a bit of tiki takiz and possession. The game changed afterwards and this is how we should continue no matter the opponent.

    • Chile are in transition and not that great but their biggest asset is the new coach, our own el tigre Gareca, which can elevate any mediocre team’s level.

    • we are blessed with two of the world best “ball Playing” center backs which any team in the world dreamt of. moreover their playing style is not the same as a result they easily compensate each other, which is lacking in case of otamendi romero pairing.. now the main concern lies in the right back position molina is not as sharp as he was in the world cup and back up montiel is not good Tbh.. which will be concering from the likes of vinicius (if we play against Brazil) and today we are exposed in that that same position by alphanso davies..

      • Yes, very true indeed, though i wonder a bit why ARG, SCALONI and CO did not really try to fix it, that RB kind of issue as, this been quite long known, though both MOLINA & MONTIEL both were truly great in the WC and prior to that, but both had very bad season’s with their club’s as ATM & Nottingham and, yes i do know and understand, that things TaKe allways time to fix and Perez was tried, but that is not really enough to be honest, though i also know and understand time is more than limited and not on ARG’s side in this case as also maybe currently there is no better option or they are too raw, but in any case i truly hope for some new RB talent’s from ARG in the near future….

    • And another point is about the wingers scaloni have to incorporate garnacho and carboni more and more after the copa america..every team needs speedy and clinical wingers (prime example are nico williams and lamine yamal from spain) and sadly nico gonzales is not living upto that expectation

    • Nice to see you again! I agree with a lot of what you say, Di Maria had a couple of nice dribbles but did lose the ball a lot (to Alphonso Davies I think it was) and wasn’t very precise with crosses either. I’ve always liked him off the bench where he makes a huge difference toward the end of games and to be a starter in finals. I also agree Chile will definitely be out for blood and after this they will be nothing — I know of no top youngster they have or anything

      Glad to see you cooked again, if the “cábala” wasn’t followed again I’d be worried

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