More on Copa
Yesterday's match illustrated at least two characteristics of football that make it so compelling to its fans. When two reasonably close teams meet the result is truly unpredictable and driven by chance and also response to chance. I mentioned yesterday that I think we'd have had a very different match had Riquelme scored rather than hit the post. Second, even great players have technical flaws and don't always "come through". Riquelme is a wonderful player who has been a delight throughout the Copa but he doesn't have a good left foot nor the ability of some great one-footed players to adjust to almost any situation. On the chance I keep mentioning a Platini would have found away to hit it with his right foot and get it on target. Riquelme must have taken 20 free kicks from 40 yards in and for this game his touch deserted him. Messi just didn't come off; but -bless him- he never backed off. He's so direct that he just needs for one of his touches to work to create turmoil. Even with that, he had his usual "fox in the chicken run" effect on Brazil's defence and they were lucky to scramble the ball clear a number of times from follow-up efforts by other Argentinians. Frankly I haven't seen anyone since Best or Maradonna that puts the willies up a defence like Messi. Hope he doesn't get injured; even though he's a strong lad, like Rooney, he's still young and we've seen other tremendous talents - Brazil's Ronaldo and Owen come to mind - not quite reach the heights they could have because they lost a step to injury before they were 20. The other small error I note was Heinze not hustling to stay onside that led to the disallowed goal. He's a defender, true, but you expect a player of his calibre to have awareness at all times. It was probably too late to matter but you never know, in all of Argentina's other games we saw the "dam breaks" phenomenon - once they got one they got a lot.In any event, a "clean sheet" for Brazil's was a bit much. I speak as someone with no general favor for Argentina - I still remember Rattin, The Hand of God, the Beckham provocation - but right now, they're paying the best fitba on the globe. Finally, Brazil with Kaka and Ronaldinho will be very formidable. It will be very interesting to see how Dunga adapts when they return. Hat's off to Dunga and Brazil!

Argentina is the new Brazil
Brazil may have won the Copa America again over Argentina but they did it playing like Italy. Don't get me wrong: I like Italy but I've come to expect something different from Brazil. The aspect of Brazil's win that other nations should find most chilling is a new-found deadliness in front of goal. Except for a patch in the 8os and early 90s Brazil won by profligacy. They made so many chances that eventually they scored even on a bad day. No longer. This was a counter-attacking team today. Argentina controlled the play and even against a massed defence made enough chances to win. When Riquelme hit the post about 10 minutes after Julio Baptiste opened the scoring I had the sense it wasn't going to be Argentina's day. The most disturbing aspect of the game was the way Brazil made sure that they committed fouls 10-20 yards from the box; this is Carlos Dunga. I didn't see the final count but there must have been 20 or more, mainly on Messi. Far enough out to take away the threat of a direct strike.