Copa America opener highlights Argentina’s frailties

Hosts Brazil opened up the tournament with a 3-0 win over a depleted Venezuela side that had to call up 15 emergency players because of a COVID-19 outbreak.

The Copa America was previously held in a four-year cycle in which it acted as a warm-up to the next set of World Cup qualifiers — in 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019.

Brazil’s opponents are suffering from an outbreak of COVID-19 — Venezuela could field only three of the starting lineup from last Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier at home to Uruguay, and they had been forced to fly in extra players.

Then there is the format, with a bizarre group phase that takes more than two weeks and 20 games to eliminate just two of the 10 sides.

Just as in the two recent World Cup qualifiers — one of them another draw with Chile — they are showing flashes of real promise, passages of play when their circuit of midfield passing looks very impressive.

Nico Otamendi is running on borrowed time at centre-back, and alongside him Lucas Martinez Quarta seems off balance too often to be the long-term solution.

Now pushed to the left, midfielder Erick Pulgar played a wonderful diagonal ball that exposed a gaping hole in the centre of the defence, and Vargas had a shot that was saved by Emiliano Martinez.

Once more Argentina had started brightly, taken the lead, and been forced to settle for a draw.

Cuadrado’s chip in the box was neatly nodded across by striker Miguel Borja, and Cardona met it with a cute finish on the volley to beat the keeper.

He is not much of an athlete — milk turns quicker than he does — but he strikes the ball extremely well and has flashes of imagination that can light up a game.

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