Copa America: Uruguay Stun Brazil In Thrilling Quarter-Final

Brazil were knocked out of the ongoing Copa America tournament after they lost to Uruguay on penalties in their quarter-final match.

The Brazil National Football team was considered as one of the teams who was most likely to win the Copa America 2024 tournament. However, this could not be so as the Brazil team were eliminated by Uruguay in their quarter-final bout. The match witnessed a lot of drama but at the end of playing time the score for both teams was still 0-0. The match then went to penalties where Uruguay converted 4 penalties and Brazil could only convert 2 penalties thus resulting in them being eliminated from the tournament. 

Most Fouls In Tournament History 

The match between Brazil and Uruguay also witnessed a record-breaking milestone as the match saw a total of forty-one fouls being recorded among both teams. Out of these forty-one fouls, 26 of them came from the Uruguay team. This also resulted in Uruguay player Nahitan Nandez being sent off after receiving a red card in the 74th minute. Uruguay took the approach to break off Brazil's flow in the midfield, fouling them whenever and this strategy by Marco Bielsa's players worked in breaking the Brazilian flow. 

Lack Of Firepower For Brazil 

Brazil took a strategy of playing long-balls forward but due to the 17-year-old Endrick being their only option in attack, the Brazillians could not optimize on this strategy. The Brazil team heavily missed two of their star players Neymar and Vinicius Junior. Neymar who is currently out due to an injury is the country's top scorer and most prolific player but due to his injury, he was not named as part of the squad. Vinicius on the other hand received a one-match ban and saw his team succumb to the Uruguay challenge from the sidelines. The match had very few goal-scoring opportunities and the best of these came in the 35th minute when Darwin Nunez had a clear opportunity to score a header and put Uruguay up front but due to him mistiming his header, the ball went astray. This was the second time Brazil have been eliminated on penalities in back to back major tournaments as Brazil also lost to Croatia on penalties in the Quarter-final of the World Cup. This leads to signs that Brazil need to up their penalty game.