Read Ben McAleer on James Rodriguez
Something about this semi-final feels ominous for Uruguay. The main reason to be fearful of falling at the final furlong is the form of Rodríguez. The 32-year-old is playing at the same level he reached in 2014, when his performances at the World Cup culminated in a £63m move from Monaco to Real Madrid, making him the fourth most expensive footballer in history after Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suárez.
His performances at the World Cup resulted in the infamous headline: “The name is Bond, James Rodríguez.” And his renaissance this year is giving Colombia a good chance of reaching what would be their third Copa América final.
The pre-match score is Uruguay 15-1 Colombia. That’s how many Copa Américas they’ve won, though 11 of Uruguay’s were before the competition was rebranded in 1975.
Colombia’s win was on home soil in 2001; that was also the last time they reached the final. Uruguay’s most recent victory was in 2011, when Luis Suarez and Diego Forlan shared five goals in the semi-final and final. That’s Uruguay’s only final this century.
Point being, this means the world to both teams.
Rob will he here shortly. In the meantime, here’s a little beef between Argentina and Drake:
Drake’s string of defeats against short geniuses continues apace. Weeks after being publicly humiliated by the world’s greatest rapper, the 5ft 5in Kendrick Lamar, he has been publicly humiliated by the world’s greatest footballer, the 5ft 7in Lionel Messi.
The Canadian rapper posted on Instagram that he had bet $300,000 – to win $2.88m – that Les Rouges would beat Argentina in Tuesday’s Copa América semi-final. Messi duly scored his team’s second goal as Argentina beat Canada 2-0 to advance to Sunday’s Copa final, where they can retain the title they won in 2021.
After the game, Argentina’s social media team posted an image of Messi and Co celebrating their victory with the caption “Not like us”, the title of a diss track aimed at Drake by Lamar, which has been streamed nearly 500m times on Spotify and was the capstone on a public feud that most observers saw as the equivalent of a 7-0 thrashing by the Californian.
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