I have to imagine that the match that took place between Argentina and Bolivia last night was a worst case scenario for Copa America 2016. It was boring, god awfully boring. Argentina was up 3-0 after half an hour and from then on in the first half the most action we saw was when the camera showed Messi sitting on the bench.
Since the crowd was shown the same footage we were on TV, they cheered at the sight of him. Those were some of the loudest cheers heard all evening.
This match was everything we hoped the Copa America Centenario wouldn’t be. It featured one of the best teams in the world, Argentina, walking all over a team that could have doubled its talent level and still been outclassed, Bolivia. Argentina had a ridiculous 86 percent of the ball for Christ’s sake.
It featured an almost full NFL stadium that was twiddling its thumbs until a superstar, Lionel Messi, came on; a stadium that sounded more empty than it really was because of the ambient noise the bored crowd was generating.
We had to listen to Landon Donovan commentate, whose Squidward-esque voice only served to make the evening more boring for those watching on TV, and make no mistake that was very hard to do.
Thankfully, after a slow start the Copa America Centenario has provided some of the most thrilling matches and best goals we have seen all year. And thankfully after a tepid first half in which Argentina dominated, Lionel Messi came on.
He didn’t do much (the game ended 3-0) but he did nutmeg Bolivia’s goal keeper after play had stopped.
That was the biggest highlight of the evening.
Oh sure, there were goals:
But Argentina will have had more satisfaction scoring on the training ground.
Let’s all just be glad the Copa America is moving on to the quarter-finals. This is the last boring match we will see all tournament.
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