Di Maria injured and Rojo also on the losing side as Henriquez's Chile win Copa America
Angel Di Maria was injured and Marcos Rojo was
also on the receiving end of a shock result in the Copa America final -
but there was joy for fellow Manchester United player Angelo Henriquez
who featured for the winning team Chile.
Di Maria and
Rojo both started for Argentina who were strong favourites to win
Saturday night's showpiece, especially after their powerful 6-1
semi-final win over Paraguay. But their opponents, for whom Henriquez
was named as a substitute, had the backing of the home crowd in Santiago
and they made life difficult for the likes of Lionel Messi and Sergio
Aguero. In fact, neither side could muster a goal in two hours of
tension and tenacity and so the destiny of the trophy had to be decided
by a penalty shoot-out, won 4-1 by Chile with Alexis Sanchez smashing
home the final spot-kick.
It was a tough evening on a personal
level for United's Argentinian duo, with Di Maria's involvement being
curtailed inside the first half-hour by an apparent hamstring injury and
Rojo becoming the first Argentina player to be booked. The Reds
defender was shown the yellow card in a frenetic spell after the
interval when Chile, sparked by Arsenal star Sanchez, came flying out of
the traps. Rojo's misdemeanour was a foul on Mauricio Isla, another
livewire in the hosts' ranks.
Di Maria had been on the receiving
end of some crunching Chilean challenges prior to his enforced
substitution and one of them earned Franciso Silva the first of the
contest's seven cautions. But United's club record signing was not in
contact with an opponent when he went down injured - hence the layman's
sideline diagnosis of a strained hamstring.
The man who came on
for Di Maria, Ezequiel Lavezzi, spurned a great chance to break the
deadlock in first-half injury time when, from a pull-back by his Paris
Saint-Germain teammate Javier Pastore, he fired straight at Chile
goalkeeper Claudio Bravo. The same shot-stopper had the home fans
shouting his name earlier in the half after he beat away a flicked
header
from Manchester City's Sergio Aguero, teed up by Messi's teasing cross.
Messi
was also involved when Argentina went agonisingly close to snatching
the trophy in stoppage time at the end of the second period. The
Barcelona superstar fed Lavezzi and when the latter squared the ball
across goal, Gonzalo Higuain - a 74th-minute replacement for Aguero -
missed the target and with it an opportunity to be a national hero.
With
the score still locked at 0-0, the game entered extra-time, no doubt
prompting Argentina fans to think of the same scenario two years ago in
the 2014 World Cup final - on that occasion, Di Maria, Rojo, Messi and
co were, of course, undone by a solitary goal scored by Germany's Mario
Goetze towards the end of the additional half-hour.
The first pair
of fresh legs for extra-time belonged to United striker Henriquez, who
has yet to make a competitive appearance for the Reds and spent all of
last season on loan to Croatian club Dinamo Zagreb. Within minutes of
replacing Eduardo Vargas, Henriquez almost had an assist but Marcelo
Diaz fired high and wide. On another occasion, the United player used
his superior energy to break beyond Argentina's tiring defence - all of
whom had played the full match - but he was flagged offside.
Chile
took and scored the first penalty of the shoot-out through Matias
Fernandez before Messi for Argentina and Arturo Vidal for the hosts also
converted. Higuain's miss and Charles Aranguiz's hit then gave the
Chileans a two-goal advantage and when Bravo saved Banega's tame effort,
it gave Sanchez the chance to wrap up the shock victory which he
accomplished with great aplomb
