Copa America 2021 Overview and team-by-team analysis

It was the scraggy plaster taped over the gaping wound, the grand finale of a controversial tournament besieged by problems, that few had even wanted to play, but that had spat out the dream end tie. Right at the death, football had found the script.

After 28 long years without an international trophy, two Copa America final penalty shootout defeats to Chile in recent years and an agonising extra-time loss in the 2014 World Cup final against Germany, Argentina are celebrating once again.

Against swashbuckling Brazil, kings of the continent over the past few years and firm tournament favourites from the start, Angel Di Maria’s first-half strike sealed a surprise 1-0 win to hand Argentina a joint-record

15th Copa America trophy.

In football’s oldest international tournament, between the game’s fiercest rivals, a bold and tactically brilliant plan from manager Lionel Scaloni had provided a fairy-tale end to an ugly and wretched tournament blitzed with problems.

For one man though, victory tasted especially sweet. Starring in his fifth major final, Lionel Messi had lost all previous attempts at glory with his country. At 34, time was running out.

But in the near mythical Maracana, that Brazilian graveyard of ghosts of yesteryear, the world’s greatest player lifted a trophy that even the late Diego Maradona had failed to win.

Finally, the critics could be silenced. Those who had questioned Messi’s commitment to the Argentine cause, the naysayers who had played no small role in forcing the Barcelona megastar to temporarily retire from international football after the 2016 Copa America

The world’s greatest player lifted a trophy that even the late Diego Maradona had failed to win

loss to Chile, were forced to eat their words. The hoodoo had been lifted and the title Messi had so desperately craved was in his hands. Nobody could begrudge the little magician his crown; few would now dare argue his place among the pantheon of the greats.

As the final whistle rang out in the virtually empty Rio stadium, the drained and emotional number ten collapsed to his knees, relief exhumed in one giant release of the lungs. Within moments he was buried under the entire Argentinian squad. This was the moment he had been waiting for. With a smile plastered across his face,