Casemiro’s suffers a historic first defeat in Copa America final

After spamming us with Copa Americas, it seems CONEMBOL and the world of football finally got the result they were looking for as Messi secured international glory with Argentina.

Where others came to see that historic moment or to watch the likes of Angel Di Maria and Neymar strut their stuff, I came to view a very different king in Real Madrid’s Casemiro (as well as a potential Militao or Vinicius cameo). As it transpires, this game should have been perfect for Casemiro, the physical aspect of the game completely overshadowing the football. Sticking strictly to his position in central midfield, Casemiro sadly saw very little of the action in this match with Argentina’s midfield completely dominating over Brazil’s.

After Angel Di Maria’s moment of quality, Case was put in a rather uncomfortable position of having a lot of possession to play in front of a deep sitting Argentine vanguard. He has managed previously in the tournament to string some nice moves together with the ball (namely the win over Chile), but just couldn’t produce the goods in this one. He wasn’t alone in that regard with nobody on either side impressing throughout the 90 minutes and its probably fortunate that only 7,000 people had to watch the match live.

Vinicius came on in the second half but outside of a shove on the nearest Argentine he could find, the youngster couldn’t swing the tide in the defending champions favor. It’s Casemiro’s first defeat in a Brazil shirt and the host first lost at home in the Copa America since 1975 (just their third home defeat in the competition all time).

Hopefully now, the tournament will be allowed to have its four year rest period sparing the viewers from another tournament of similar quality to 2021’s edition and allowing Real Madrid’s international’s a summer to recover from some pretty heavy playing time over the last five years.