Argentina vs Colombia 16/06/19

16 June 2019

Argentina’s Copa America campaign starts at the Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador, as they take on Colombia in the opening match of Group B.

The 14-time Copa America winners have finished their warm-up campaign with a stunning 5-1 win over Nicuaragua, which was their second consecutive triumph following a disappointing 3-1 loss to Venezuela back in March. Lionel Scaloni has had ten months to prepare his team for the tournament after taking charge of the national team following the World Cup fiasco. The 41-year-old has overseen a successful preparation, with La Albiceleste picking up six wins in nine outings since returning from Russia (W6, D1, L2). Interestingly, five of six Argentina’s triumphs over the past ten months have seen them beat their rivals to nil while netting over 1.5 match goals on five occasions too.

Meanwhile, Los Cafeteros have entered the tournament on a run of two consecutive triumphs over Panama and Peru, with both of them ending with the same 3-0 scoreline. The Colombians have demonstrated impressive attacking performances since exiting the World Cup, with Carlos Queiroz’s players bagging 2+ match goals in five of eight outings in the post-World Cup period. During the same span, La Tricolor have secured six victories, although they’ve been leading at the halftime only three times in the process (W6, D1, L1). Still, it will be a daunting prospect for Colombia to clinch a win here as their last triumph over Argentina dates back to 2007, with Los Cafeteros failing to beat bitter South American rivals in all eight of their previous H2H encounters (D4, L4).