Tuesday 30 June 2015

Vargas stunning goal sends Chile through to final of Copa America 2015



Chile progressed to the final and is now just one game away from ending a 99 year old drought in Copa America. The last time they were in the finals was in 1987 and for them this was really monumental.
It was a great victory for Chile although the manner at which it was achieved soured the victory especially benefiting from lots of refereeing decisions.

 Eduardo Vargas of Chile celebrates after scoring the second goal of his team during the 2015 Copa America Chile Semi Final match between Chile and Peru at Nacional Stadium on June 29, 2015 in Santiago, Chile. (Photo by Alex Reyes/LatinContent/Getty Images)

Arturo Vidal should probably have received his marching orders or at least seen a yellow card in the first 5 minutes after he had a tangle with Zambrano who would be later sent off in the game and then appeared to raise his hand and shove the defender in the face. Surprisingly from the Venezuelan referee's point of view he saw nothing wrong with the incident and Vidal escaped without any card.  Zambrano was later sent off in the 20th minute after he had followed through into Aranguiz after he cleared the ball with his studs catching the midfielder in the lower back. Perhaps he was reckless, but the straight red he was shown by the referee was totally harsh and again called into question some of the refereeing blunders in the game. If he was getting a straight red card for this then how in the world did Vidal not even see yellow for the incident earlier?..Well apart from the high level of refereeing blunders there wasn't too much of a gulp of difference between the two sides as Peru gave a good account of themselves as well as their Chilean counterpart. Queen Park Rangers forward put the hosts ahead four minutes before half time with what appeared to be an offside goal but was given by the referee another of those annoying referee blunders in the game. Medel then turned the ball into is own net from a Farfan cross for the equaliser after the diligence of the Peru players was paid.

- Watch Chile outgun Uruguay to reach Copa America Semi finals
- CONMEBOL might not be able pay prize money for Copa America winners
- Copa America: Brazil win Group C, Colombia also scale through thanks to victory
- Argentina win Group B, Uruguay, Paraguay advance with draw...
Copa America concentrated on interest and vulnerability as group Stage finishes
Watch: Pizarro fires Peru to critical Copa America triumph

But it was the Chileans who had the last laugh as Vargas surged forward four minutes later to strike a shot that flicked the heel of the left-back Juan Manuel Vargas and flew into the top corner from 25 yards.  It was his fourth goal of the tournament, making him the leading scorer.

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