The 2024 Copa America

Greetings, I am 15-year-old Garrett Zhou, a Durham Academy High School student. I enjoy studying, exercising, playing soccer, and maintaining discipline in general. My history with soccer is fairly straightforward: I began playing when I was 7 years old, and at the age of 12, I was chosen for the ECNL regional Carolinas team as the top player in the state. I was selected to travel with 20 players from my club, NCFC, to play against NY Red Bulls Academy, PDA Academy, and NYFC Academy that summer. I'm currently with the second-ranked NCFC 09 ECNL club.

I have previously done a post on the 2024 EUROs coming up this summer, but I still remember about the Copa America! Hosted in the United States this year, the 48th edition of the tournament is the oldest in the world. The countries currently in the Copa America will be Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia (who are on a 21-match unbeaten streak as of this post), Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, the US, Canada, and Costa Rica. Here are all of my predictions. 

For anyone not familiar with the Copa America, here is a great article to read about it: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5332759/2024/06/09/copa-america-2024-a-beginners-guide/

Group A consists of Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Canada. My prediction for the winner of this group is World Champions Argentina, who have looked incredible and are likely to retain their Copa America for another edition and claim their record-breaking 16th Copa, which would put them one ahead of Uruguay for the most Copa Americas of all time. Second place in this group will be Canada, with starboy Alphonso Davies. It will be very close, but Peru doesn't look strong enough and Chile is too inconsistent for my liking; it's why I can't favor either of those 2 countries to go through. 

Group B consists of Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Jamaica. My prediction for the winner of this group is Mexico, they have looked very strong in qualifying and in recent matches in my opinion, and will do themselves justice here in this relatively easy group. However, second place is not an easy decision. Honestly, the moment I saw this group, I believed that Ecuador would go through, so I'm going to stick to that and say Venezuela and Jamaica go home. 

Group C consists of the US, Uruguay, Panama, and Bolivia. My prediction for the winner of this group is Uruguay. They've been very successful in the past with the Copa America, and have always had a strong squad for themselves and the performances recently haven't disappointed, they will go through as the first-place team. Then, as the second-place team, the host nation the US. They just tied Brazil, and although they took a thrashing from Colombia, they will go through in a tough group. I hope they'll be there in Charlotte for the semis!

Group D consists of Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, and Costa Rica. My prediction for the winner of this group is Colombia. Against the US, Brazil looked disappointing, and with Colombia on a 22-match unbeaten streak, it's going to take a lot to end that here in this group. I'll be taking Colombia on top with Brazil in second place. 

For the knockout stages, it would be too much to predict every single match, so my prediction is going to be Colombia to win their second-ever Copa America, with Argentina as finalists. Messi as the best player of course, Darwin Nunez as the top scorer, and the US as the surprise package. 

Always, thanks for reading, and hope you have a great day and a great time watching the Copa America!