By: Henry Isaacson
The chance for the United States to become the number one soccer team in the Western Hemisphere only lies two hours away.
This summer, the COPA America tournament will be played all across the United States while celebrating its 100th anniversary. Sixteen different teams from the USA all the way to Chile will be competing for the chance to take home the championship trophy. This special edition tournament will be called COPA America Centenario.
The tournament started in 1916 and originally only consisted of South American teams. These South American teams are in the Conmebol league, which contains 10 different teams.
As the tournament raged on throughout the years, Mexico and the United States were the first CONCACAF league based team to join. The CONCACAF league includes Central American teams, Mexico, and the US. This merge of confederations happened in 1993, and would create the tournament format that is still used today.
During this year’s tournament, 10 Conmebol and six CONCACAF teams will play. To the usual COPA America tournament this situation seems abnormal because usually only 12 teams play, but because it’s also the 45th tournament being played, the committee has opened up the tournament to 16 teams. This is the first year the tournament will be hosted by the United States.
COPA America Centenario will be played in 10 different hosting cities: Santa Clara, CA, Chicago, IL, East Rutherford, NJ, Pasadena, CA, Glendale AZ, Foxborough, MA, Houston, TX, Orlando, FL, Philadelphia, PA, and Seattle, WA.
To kick off the tournament, the United States will play against Colombia on June 3, 2016. This game will be played in Santa Clara and is a qualifying game to help rank each team within the group.
The tournament is created by using group stages. There are four different groups within the tournament, and each group (A, B, C, and D) holds four teams. Group A includes USA, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Paraguay. Group B includes Haiti, Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador. Group C includes Jamaica, Venezuela, Mexico, and Uruguay. Group D includes Panama, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.
Each team in their select group will play each other and will be awarded points depending on their number of wins, losses, and draws. After each group is done, the winner and runner up from each group will advance to the actual tournament portion of COPA America Centenario.
As these teams progress, they will face the other teams in the other brackets, narrowing the tournament down to the finals. The final match will be played in the Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on June 26, 2016. A third and fourth place game will also occur, and that will happen on June 25 in Glendale, Arizona.
