Gonzalo Higuain's winner was enough to give Argentina a 1-0 victory over Jamaica on Saturday night.A 1-0 win played at walking pace said little about either Gerardo Martino’s side or about Jamaica, which lost by a single goal for the third straight game, but it assured Argentina went through as group-winners, and so Argentina will play back in this stadium in the third quarterfinal.
With Paraguay and Uruguay drawing 1-1 earlier on Saturday, Argentina knew it was through to the quarterfinal even with a defeat while Jamaica was out -- more drama killed by CONMEBOL’s baffling refusal to play the final group games simultaneously as is customary in every other continental tournament.
The only question was whether it would go through first (and face probably the third-placed team in Group C), second (and face the second placed team in Group C) or third (and face, probably, Chile in Santiago).
And even that intrigue had effectively disappeared within 11 minutes as Gonzalo Higuain, starting in place of the rested Sergio Aguero, turned sharply onto an Angel Di Maria cross to put Argentina ahead.
A 1-1 draw would have meant Argentina and Paraguay having to draw lots to determine who was top and who was second, bit remote a possibility as that seemed, Messi stayed on after half-time. He wasn’t rested as Alexis Sanchez and Arturo Vidal had been by Chile on Friday.
This was Messi’s 100th game for Argentina. It’s a milestone that is being reached increasingly frequently these days – Messi is the 328th player to amass a century of caps, of whom only 60 made their debuts before 1990, but he is only the fifth Argentinian, and, given he is only 27, Javier Zanetti’s all-time record of 143 games for Argentina should be within his reach. It was a less than euphoric centenary, although his lack of centrality at least showed how many other potential match-winners Argentina have: unlike Brazil, it is not dependent on one star, brilliant as that star may be.
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Argentina can justifiably argue that it had by far the better of the game and had enough chances to have won by a wide margin. Di Maria, Argentina’s liveliest and sharpest player on the night hit the bar with a curler. Miller made a stretching save to keep out a Messi chip. Javier Pastore fired a shot across the face of goal and just wide.But any danger was more theoretical than actual. It was soporific, but Argentina did what it had to do. Meanwhile Chile had top group A after romping Bolivia on Friday. Upon all the Vidal scandal, being charged with drunk driving, Chile coasted home top of Group A with a 5-0 victory over Bolivia which was a highly impressive performance against limited opposition.
Alexis Sanchez scored his first goal in this Copa America tournament to help Chile secure a 5-0 victory over Bolivia on Friday.Mexico’s 2-1 defeat to Ecuador earlier in the afternoon meant both sides knew they were already through to the last eight, a remarkable achievement for Bolivia which has not made it through the groups since it hosted the Copa America in 1997. That took some of the edge off the game, even although there was a clear advantage in finishing top. Victory meant playing a third-placed side in the quarter-final, while coming second meant having to play the second side in the group of Brazil, Peru, Venezuela and Colombia.
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