Copa América

CONMEBOL Copa América (CONMEBOL America Cup), 

known until 1975 as the South American Football Championship (Campeonato Sudamericano de Fútbol in Spanish and Copa Sul-Americana de Futebol in Portuguese), is a main men's football tournament contested among national teams from CONMEBOL. It is the oldest international football competition. The competition determines the champion of South America. Since the 1990s, teams from North America and Asia have also been invited to participate.

Since 1993, the tournament has generally featured 12 teams – all 10 CONMEBOL teams and two additional teams from other confederations. Mexico participated in every tournament between 1993 and 2016, with one additional team drawn from CONCACAF, except for 1999, when AFC team Japan filled out the 12-team roster, and 2019, which featured Japan and Qatar. The 2016 version of the event, Copa América Centenario, featured sixteen teams, with six teams from CONCACAF in addition to the 10 from CONMEBOL. Mexico's two runner-up finishes are the highest for a non-CONMEBOL side.

Eight of the ten CONMEBOL national teams have won the tournament at least once in its 46 stagings since the event's inauguration in 1916, with only Ecuador and Venezuela yet to win. Uruguay has the most championships in the tournament's history, with 15 cups, while the current champion, Brazil, has nine cups. Argentina, which hosted the inaugural edition in 1916, has hosted the tournament the most times (nine). The United States is the only non-CONMEBOL country to host, having hosted the event in 2016. On four occasions (in 1975, 1979, 1983 and 2020), the tournament was or will be held in multiple South American countries.

Format and rules

The tournament was previously known as Campeonato Sudamericano de Futbol (South American Championship of Football). South American Championship of Nations was the official English language name. The current name has been used since 1975. Between 1975 and 1983 it had no host nation, and was held in a home and away fashion. The current final tournament features 12 national teams competing over a month in the host nation. There are two phases: the group stage followed by the knockout stage. In the group stage, teams compete within three groups of four teams each. Three teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings. The other teams are assigned to different "pots", usually based also on the FIFA Rankings, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the three groups.

Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. The last round of matches of each group is not scheduled at the same time unlike many tournaments around the world. The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage as well as the two best third-place teams. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Beginning in 1995, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (before, winners received two points).

The ranking of each team in each group is determined as follows:

a) greatest number of points obtained in all group matches;

b) goal difference in all group matches;

c) greatest number of goals scored in all group matches.

If two or more teams are equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings are determined as follows:

d) greatest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;

e) goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;

f) greater number of goals scored in all group matches between the teams concerned;

g) drawing of lots by the CONMEBOL Organizing Committee (i.e. at random).

The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if a match is still tied after 90 minutes in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, and after extra time in the final. It begins with the quarter-finals, then semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.

Trophies

The Copa América trophy, which is awarded to the winner of the tournament, was donated to the Association by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Ernesto Bosch, in 1910, when Argentina organized an event to commemorate the centenary of the May Revolution. That competition (also attended by Uruguay and Chile) was named "Copa del Centenario" (Centennial Cup).

The current Copa América trophy was purchased in 1916 from "Casa Escasany", a jewelry shop in Buenos Aires, at the cost of 3,000 Swiss francs.

The Copa América trophy is a 9 kg (20 lb) weight and 77 cm (30 in) tall silver ornament, with a 3-level wooden base which contains several plaques. The plaques are engraved with every winner of the competition, as well as the edition won.^[18] The trophy was once have one- and two-level base, and without any base at all, like the one used in 1975.

On April 2016, a commemorative trophy – specifically designed for the Copa América Centenario – was introduced at the Colombian Football Federation headquarters of Bogotá to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the competition.^[19] The trophy was based on the original Copa América trophy's shape, added with the 2016 edition logo. The trophy was not to have a base. The CAC was 61 cm (24 in) tall with a weight of 7.1 kg (16 lb), covered by 24-carat gold. The emblems of CONMEBOL and CONCACAF were also engraved on its body.

The commemorative Copa América Centenario trophy was designed by Epico Studios in the United States and manufactured by London Workshops of Thomas Lyte in England.^[21][22] The winning team will keep the trophy in perpetuity.

Apart from the main trophy, the "Copa Bolivia" (a trophy made in silver) has been awarded to the runner-up of the competition since the 1997 edition. The trophy is named after the country that hosted the 1997 Copa América, with a small Bolivian flag attached on one of its sides.