Canada vs Uruguay Preview

Canada and Uruguay will face each other this Sunday in the third-place playoff of the 2024 Copa America.

Canada were eliminated in the last round by Argentina with goals from Julian Alavarez and Lionel Messi’s first goal in the tournament denying Jesse Marsch’s side the chance to reach the final.

Although the Maple Leafs will be disappointed about the result, they still have a lot to be proud of after outperforming other teams to reach this stage of the tournament. Head coach Marsch summed this tournament up as having gone “way better than any of us could have scripted,” and that’s backed up historically, too, given that they’d never before reached the final four of a major tournament outside of CONCACAF.

Canada are already the best performer of their home federation ahead of hosts USA and Mexico. Having only lost twice to Argentina in this tournament, they’ll hope to pick up the bronze-placed finish on this occasion.

Meanwhile, Uruguay missed the chance to reach the final of the Copa America after suffering a narrow 1-0 loss to Colombia in the last round. Marcelo Bielsa’s side were one of the best teams in this year’s Copa with their run to the semi-final built on a solid defence that conceded just twice before losing to Colombia in the last game.

Uruguay were also great in attack scoring nine times across four outings in the tournament. The highlight of their campaign was knocking Brazil out in the quarter-finals, a result they will hope to take confidence from as they look to build on what is a perfect record after two previous head-to-heads (W2). They are favourites to win here given that no nation has picked up more bronze medals in this tournament than Uruguay (nine).