Washington (dpa)
Argentine star Julian Alvarez confirmed that his team deserves to qualify for the final match in the South American Football Championship “Copa America 2024”.
The Argentine national team continued its successful campaign to retain the Copa America title for the second consecutive edition, after its valuable 2-0 victory over its Canadian counterpart, in the semi-finals of the continental competition currently being held in the United States.
Alvarez opened the scoring for Argentina in the first half, before Lionel Messi, the team captain, added the second goal in the 51st minute, scoring his first goal in the current edition of the tournament, and the 14th in his rich Copa America career, leaving him just three goals behind the record for the player who has scored the most goals in the tournament, which was first launched in 1916. The world champion Argentina team has set a date in the final with the winner of the other semi-final match between Colombia and Uruguay, as the “Tango Dancers” team seeks to be crowned champions for the 16th time in its history, and to be the team with the most titles, which it currently shares with Uruguay.
“It seems easy to beat Canada, after everything we’ve done, but it’s not,” Alvarez said. “We really deserve to reach the final, we played very well.”
The Manchester City star, who won the World Cup with Argentina in Qatar in 2022, stressed, “We are in another final, and we are facing it as it deserves.”
Alvarez spoke about the goal he scored in Canada, saying: “Rodri’s (De Paul’s) pass was good, as was the control of the ball. I focused a bit badly, but it went in at the end.”
This was Alvarez’s second goal in the current edition of the Copa America, after he had previously scored the first goal of the competition during Argentina’s 2-0 win over Canada in the opening match of the tournament.
Asked which team he would like to face in the Copa America final between Uruguay and Colombia, Alvarez replied: “Now it doesn’t matter which opponent we face, we have to rest now and start preparing for the next match.”
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