Uruguay were my main outright pick for the competition and in midweek I wrote .............

 

 

They start against Ecuador, who are ranked 53 places lower by FIFA and who are far removed from the team who broke into the top 10 seven years ago. They arrived at these championships with their intentions clear, priority will be World Cup qualifying, they are experimenting in the meantime and for them, the Copa is little more than a training exercise. Off the pitch things do not sound great, many are unhappy with head coach Hernán Dario Gómez and felt he should never have been appointed for multi reasons, the squad looks substandard and there are rumours of arguments amongst them. They are winless in four 2019 friendly starts and lost their last six competitive games , conceding 2+ goals in each. This looks a good opening fixture for Uruguay and I expect them to win.

 

 

 

 

Huge difference between these two squads in terms of experience, in terms of age and conditions /career big game knowledge.

 

Firstly, in playing in Copa America/ South America, Chile are obviously well used to this level of competition and playing in this enviroment and are looking to record a hat-trick of Copa titles after winning as host in 2015 and in the US in 2016. They have six players in their squad with 100 plus caps, with multi European major league titles between them and three with a combined 100 + international goals. Japan arrive as one of two invitational teams and we spoke last week about how difficult it has been for most of those, Mexico aside. They have come with a VERY experiental group, with 17 of the squad never having made an appearance for the senior national team before this month and with 18 aged 22 or younger. This looks, feels and is, men against boys and if Chile fail to win this and fairly comfortably, they are going to be embarassed and questions will be asked. Japan have eyes towards the 2020 Olympics which they are hosting and this group are likely to be the core of that squad, with Hajime Moriyasu who is actually U23 head coach also being put in charge of the senior team in the interim so that he can build towards Tokyo and, they are playing today and this tournament with eyes and plans on next summer. Moriyasu is also in the process of changing formation from his preferred 4-2-3-1 to a back three, which is a recent development and hardly ideal for this tournament. They do have a "star" in 18 yo Takefusa Kubo who left Japan when barely 11 yo and spent four years with Barcelona, he came back to Japan and started playing J-League football in his mid teens, he rejoined a big European side last week, signing a five year deal with Real Madrid . Chile 2-0.