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4) Tournament jeopardized as Argentina withdraw in 2001
As there is no qualifying tournament for the Copa America, all 10 South American countries were part of the tournament as usual and they were joined by Mexico and Canada to complete the twelve. Prior to the tournament held in Colombia, there were security threats in the host nation and CONMEBOL cancelled the tournament. Venezuela offered to host the tournament on short notice, but in the last minute Colombia were given the green light to host the event.
The Argentine football federation were unhappy with the sudden reversal and they claimed that their players had received death threats from various terrorist organizations. Eventually, they withdrew from the tournament despite Colombia’s repeated assurances over Argentina’s added security measures.
To make matters worse, when the first cancellation was announced, Canadian players returned to their club teams. At this point, the tournament couldn’t go ahead as it needed two more teams. Costa Rica and Honduras were given late invites to join the tournament and the two nations accepted the invite.
Honduras was a last minute invitee and they arrived with barely enough players in a plane provided by Colombian Air Force after the tournament started and just a few hours before their first game against Costa Rica.
5) Paraguay reaches the final without winning a single game in 2011
For the 2011 edition of the tournament, the tournament favourites were the usual suspects – Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. But Paraguay, who were ranked 32 before the tournament, sprung a huge surprise.
They were drawn in Group B along with Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador and drew all three of their games, finishing third in the group behind Brazil and Venezuela. Since there are only 12 teams in the tournament, the two highest best third-placed teams from all the groups also make it to the quarter-finals. Courtesy of their zero goal difference, Paraguay made it to the quarter-finals at the expense of Costa Rica who had a -2 goal difference.
In the quarter-final, Paraguay once again faced Brazil. The match was goalless after extra time and the Paraguayans edged past Brazil on penalties to reach the semi-final. In the semi-final, they faced Venezuela again and after another goalless draw they won on penalties.
Paraguay’s good luck on penalties couldn’t be tested a third time as they lost 3-0 to Uruguay in the final.
