David Ospina’s Colombia bounced back from defeat in their opening game against Venezuela to topple Brazil 1-0 in Santiago.
Colombia’s goal, scored on 36 minutes, wasn’t the prettiest thing. A free kick into the Brazil box from Cuadrado provoked panic and Jeison Murillo swung a left foot to leave keeper Jefferson stranded.
Ospina made a fine stop to deny Neymar a headed equaliser just before half-time in a play that saw the striker pick up a booking for trying to direct the rebound in with his hand.
To compound a bad night for the Barcelona star and his country, Neymar then got his marching orders after the final whistle for smacking the ball at Pablo Armero in frustration. Carlos Bacca’s shove in retaliation earned him a red card too.
The win for Jose Pekerman’s side, their first against Brazil since 1991, draws them level on points with their vanquished opponents and Venezuela. Colombia play their final group game on Sunday night against Peru.
The other major talking point in Chile is Arturo Vidal’s car crash the day after his side’s second game of the tournament. The Juventus midfielder was detained by authorities for drink driving after the incident which saw him wreck his Ferrari.
Vidal and his wife thankfully escaped injury and he’s since been banned from getting behind the wheel for four months.
Despite his run in with the law, Vidal – who has three Copa America goals to his name already – retains his place in the Chile squad. He’s been given a ticking off our man Alexis who revealed in a press conference:
“I told him ‘Arturo, you better bust your arse.’
“It’s very hard what happened with him but as a group, the least we can do is put up with it as a team.
“There has been indiscipline, we were wrong, you are right about that. But we are a family and we are there to support him.”
Ooooooooooooooooooooooosppinaaaaaaaaa!
Love the chant
Oh Arseblog News and your anti-Opina agend- oh.
I hope Alexis gets a good rest this summer.
Reading about Vidal I felt a bit like a parent whose kid is on a school holiday and you hear about something REALLY BAD another kid did: relief yours wasn’t involved, followed by a slightly smug satisfaction: ‘course he wasn’t, not my alexis’
‘Arturo, you better bust your arse
Alexis you legend
All it takes is a year with the BFG
And some people still think Oooooooooospina is not good enough for Arsenal. Will the ban affect him in England? Vidal is another aggressive mildfilder who don’t take shit. i would love to see him and Sanchez continue their banter in Arsenal dressing room. happy days ahead.
Did anyone else hear the columbia fans do the oooooooospina chant? Was nice to hear.
Well, in fairness our Ospina was also partially culpable for this:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2udsxo_roberto-firmino-100-chance-incredible-miss-brazil-0-1-colombia-2015_sport
To be fair, Ospina really got hung out to dry by his defender — that was a wretched excuse for a back pass. He did a great job of coming off his line to break up the play; he just got unlucky with the ricochet. Can’t really blame him for any of what happened there.
Vidal’s non-punishment is a disgrace. If it were you or I, it would be a mich different story.
Maybe he gets off lucky with it happening where it did. I’d like to think that the same thing would have been more severely punished
Probably yes. There is some footage of a police cam right after the accident. You can hear vidal say somethig along the lines of: “handcuff me but you’ll enrage a whole country.” Don’t really like his attitude even when drunk. Don’t want to see him at arsenal, not the right attitude. Also it is not the first time he was drinking during season, not sure if more accidents happened, but there was something on tv of him apologizing in the exact same way as he did for thia incident.
Brazil Brazil. Poor old Brazil. Since that encounter with Germany which was subsequently put on YouPorn, any team that fancies can score against them now.
Four months ban for drink driving and smashing your car up. Blimey
That save from Neymar was world class