You enter to watch a copa America video and then you find yourself getting educated about the Ecuadorian economy, thanks Alfie

I think Conmebol and CONCACAF should agree to scrap the gold cup and make it a true copa America. North and South America

Rooting hard for Colombia to win the “Copper America”

In South America, the word "America" usually refers to the entire Americas, so Copa America is a suitable name for a competition that includes the USA and Mexico as well as the CONMEBOL members

“Like the African cup of nations hosted by Austria” I don’t think it’s the same scenario as it’s literally called “copa America” which makes sense because it’s all American countries

To be fair, Mexico and the US are still in America. Qatar on the other hand...

As someone from South America, one of the reasons I think the Euros is more appealing to a broader audience is that they have a lot of teams playing in it. Copa America is just as high quality as the Euros in my opinion, but with Conmebol only having 10 countries in total as a confederation, it feels like a much smaller tournament in comparisson. It doesn't matter how much you hype up the Confederations Cup for example, even though it was composed of the winners of the 6 continental champions around the world, it always felt less important, appealing and prestigious than winning whatever continental cup your confederation holds every 4 years instead. This is why they traditionally invite 2 non-Conmebol teams, most of the time being Concacaf teams, and I REALLY wouldn't mind if they scrapped the Gold Cup from Concacaf and instead Conmebol and Concacaf held a joint Copa America every 4 years, specially considering Concacaf has 41 member nations. It's good to remember that Concacaf was born after the North and Central american confederations joined together in 1961. It'd make it a much bigger tournament and more appealing in my opinion, and it could help level the playing field between Concacaf and Conmebol. Maybe they don't even need to scrap the Gold Cup, it can just stay as a lower-tiered competition and then there's the true Copa America.

it seems like more people outside the americas have a problem with this tournament than people actually living here

I don't see any problem here, the tournament began with three countries, change is constant, it's either this or the tournament continues to decline in popularity

As a brazilian, I have absolutely loved this new format

⁠Copa America literally translates to cup of America/America Cup. Both continents of North and South America are literally referred to together as the Americas. There is nothing weird nor wrong about this

I'm really happy with new copa format. Finally 4 groups of 4

Copa America is basically what it should be. It's part of the American continent, not for South America alone.

I don't see the issue here North and South are collectively known as the Americas, and if you're going to allow teams from outside South America to compete it only makes sense to let them host it as well.

The 16 team format guarantees: 1. Every CONMEBOL nation plays at least 1 CONCACAF nation 2. No 3rd place teams advance

I'm Brazilian, and i think most south americans are happy with this edition of the copa america. We are a small continent, so having more countries participaring is nice, plus Mexico and USA have competitive teams to play against. I honestly think it's a Win/Win situation.

Something else to consider is how badly CONCACAF teams need this tournament from a competitive perspective. The USMNT has won every tournament in CONCACAF since 2021 where we had our top talent (Nations League and Gold Cup were splitting the rosters). As recent friendlies proved, all the CONCACAF teams are way behind South American ones.

It would be great if they made it official that Copa America is tournament for the whole of America and it's a 16 team tournament. CONMEBOL could still keep the advantage by having all 10 members quality automatically while out of 41 CONCACAF memvers only 6 qualify. CONCACAF can decide how they select those 6 teams, would it be a separate qualifications campaign or would they use either world cup qualifiers or CONCACAF gold cup as the qualifiers for Copa America. I'm not from South America myself and I don't know what locals think about it, but I know that when I watched Copa America and see Mexico or USA or any other North American countries, it didn't feel weird, but it was so weird seeing Japan and Qatar participating in Copa America.

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I think if anything, having so many North American nations in the Copa America makes it more of a Copa America. Like it’s not the Copa America del Sur, so theoretically it’s not an issue if any team from the Americas plays in it

I feel like its not a real Copa America unless there are teams competing from both North and South America.

Ecuador just had a country-wide blackout this week. Can you imagine if the Copa were being held there?

As much as it IS a cash grab let's be honest NO country in south America except Brazil and Argentina (who have recently held the Copa America) could organize the tournament in the short time since Ecuador said they couldn't do it. Even then Argentina have a host of economic problems. As a South American I do think it sucks that a lot of recent tournaments have gone to the US but I genuinely think 16 team format with constant teams from all of america. Also adding Mexico and Canada to the pool of places it could be held isn't terrible. We do give a bit of proportional power to concacaf but I think this format makes the overall cake bigger

I don't know what you're bitching about. Conmebol decided to make a cup together with CONCACAF, which makes sense. There aren't too many teams in South America. Expanded format includes a lot more teams, hence a lot more viewership, and a lot more money.

As an American can confirm there's nothing worse than the US ticket market. Hopefully the US Justice Dept. wins their case against Ticketmaster/Live Nation and the situation can improve

Com' on, why do you have to represent Nigeria with an image of a village while depicting Europe with a cityscape? This kind of bias is disappointing and reminiscent of mainstream media. Nigeria has vibrant cities and diverse landscapes that deserve accurate representation.

Football politics and maintenance of power will prevent Conmebol and Concacaf from merging. No executive's giving up their power for the sake of a healthier charge.

As a Mexican, it is really sad that the team prefers dollars thanks to the federation and its managers, as in Mexico the fans do demand results and boo, they prefer to escape to the United States, today there is a rift between the fans and the a team that will hardly be repaired, they don't even have matches with low-profile rivals, despite having excellent stadiums in CDMX, Puebla, Guadalajara and Monterrey, at this point the Mexican team should play the World Cup at home in the United States, It's really very sad

Why does having CONCACAF teams make it no longer Copa America? America isn’t just South America

Just scrap the Golden Cup for a “combined Copa America”

Its the Copa AMERICA. NEWSFLASH: North AMERICA is in the Americas. It isn't called the Copa SURAmerica, it's the Copa America.

But it's called "Copa America" not "Copa Sudamerica", I don't see the issue 🤷

As a Colombian I really like this new format. The 5 team groups of the 2021 Copa were basically pointless because just one team per group was going home after the group stage, and in 2019 having those random invitees was also weird. I’d rather have other nations that are actually from the America’s be invited to participate rather than random nations like Qatar. Also having 16 nations instead of just 10 or 12 even if 6 of them are not from CONMEBOL is fine by me as long as they still are from the Americas because having 16 teams means that the tournament will follow a much better format. As far as the US being the hosts again, I don’t have a problem with that either. In the 2019 Copa some matches had absolutely dreadful attendance numbers, to the point that it was actually hard to see that our major continental trophy couldn’t pull even 10k fans for some games. South Americans won’t travel for the Copa America regardless of if it’s being held in our continent or in the US, so holding it in the US makes sense because as you said there is a large population of immigrants from every country who earn decent enough money and are able to attend, alongside the minority of people who reside in South America and are willing to travel and pay the costs.

I think CONMEBOL and CONCACAF coming together to make this something permanent would actually be a good thing. The Copa America could have 10 CONMEBOL teams with 6 CONCACAF teams and the Gold Cup could have 10 CONCACAF teams with 6 CONMEBOL teams and just add USA and Mexico to the host country rotation. It would give CONCACAF the competition it needs to improve and CONMEBOL the American dollars it wants, in addition to keeping both continents/federations competitive with Europe so UEFA doesn't continue leaving everyone behind

not sure if I'm ready to hear Alfie say "Copper America" over and over for almost 30 minutes (it's so funny how Brits often don't realize how they invent "r"s between vowels out of thin air!)

As someone who live in the CONCACAF region I live this format much better. All the bigger countries treat the Gold Cup very passively as best, last Gold Cup all the bigger teams pretty much had the B squads playing. The European Championships best format was when it was 16 teams. Having all 10 South America and 6 CONCACAF members qualify is pretty fair split and still be pretty competitive.

There is no R in Copa.

As an Ecuadorian(the country where the copa was meant to be held) born,who lives in New York and next Tuesday I’ll get to see my favorite ever player and the greatest of all time, I’m so happy about this.

Why not show a picture of a city in Nigeria rather than just a dry farmland but show a nice picture of Austria when mentioning it. The narrative people in the west have about Africa is appalling

As a Turk living in Scotland, I'd say I love the Copa America more than Euros, since it is the game of passion. I would love to see CONCACAF and CONMEBOL become one, although logistical nightmare certainly plays a role.

In reality the hosting of Copa América has been a messy issue for decades thanks to CONMEBOL's own idiocy, it was always meant to be every 4 years but then CONMEBOL had it every 2 years in the 90s until 2001, then had it once in 2004 but they saw it having the same year as the Euros an issue so they decided it was going to be every 4 years the year between the year after the World Cup and before the Euro(which was how it was originally meant to be in the 70s and 80s) and that was the case with the exception of the 2016 edition(Again, why was that even a thing?), but suddenly in 2019 they decided it had to be the same year as the Euros so they were going to have another in 2020 so the following year after one was already played! That one ended up being played in 2021 because of COVID. In the end the next Copa América is meant to be played in 2028, don't be surprised if that date is changed around again. And the least we talk about CONMEBOL club competitions the better. All 10 south american football associations have their own fair share of issues particular to them but out of the six confederations CONMEBOL is likely the worst run one out there. The success of south american football is all in spite to CONMEBOL. Also the use of the name "Copa América" came long before there were any guests, it was first used in 1975, the first Copa América that had teams from outside CONMEBOL playing was in 1993.

The Copa America gets a controversial video, the AFCON gets a controversial video, the world cup gets a controversial video. The Euro gets "if you could bring a legend", and prediction videos. Where is the fairness in reporting? I will not try to dictate what HITC Sevens chooses to document but it is not fair reporting.

CONMEBOL and CONCACAF need to combine, it will improve quality across both continents and make World Cup qualification a lot more exciting

Nah. A decent amount of people have been thinking CONMEBOL and CONCACAF should just merge. To make a bigger and more competitive confederation.

Well, contrary to the Euro, Afcon or the Asian Cup, the Copa America was stuck with the same 10 teams without any chance for an expansion. We're living in an era of more, more, more so them wishing for a bigger tournament doesn't come as much of a surprise. Also, Ecuador was on the brink of a civil war early this year.

Copa America could be huge if they combined both confederations like this much more often. You get more teams, the big south american giants, and the big money from North America.

its still a copa america its in america

"It's like as if Nigeria were at the Euros" - that's such an incredibly false equivalence that it genuinely stains the video

You also have to consider that there are, what, 7-10+ million people of direct South American origin in the USA, which is 3 times as many people as Uruguay's population, for example. It's still essentially serving as a home atmosphere for a large number of South Americans.

Nigeria hosting the Euro made me laugh out loud 😂 thanks for mentioning us though 🇳🇬🇳🇬

It is called Copa America not Copa South America

Huge disclaimer from an actual latino- we don’t care about north and south america. it’s just America🤷‍♂️

I don't understand how ppl can be mad that the Copa America now includes North America, it just makes the tournament more exciting, inclusive, competitive, lucrative, and entertaining

It’s called Copa America, not Copa South America. That’s like the Euros being held in Germany. Yeah, they are a part of Europe…

Bro United States is in America. The only thing weird here Is a man from England complaining about USA being part of copa America. I like your videos but this one is not it at all

As an American, it’s awesome to have good games. As an American, it sucks that our ticketing processes are so horrible.

Concacaf meaning Canada, Mexico and USA, the six Central American countries and the rest of Conmebol should just make one conferation

You can smell the Eurosnobbery exuding from this video

2:45 Its really nothing like Afcon being hosted in Austria lmao. The Latin American diaspora in the USA is insanely huge. The US can host big tournaments and a reminder that the record game attendance for a World Cup is the US in 1994, extra impressive because they had 12 less games than all the world cups since. More bums on seats than Germany, France, Japan, even Brazil could manage with 12 extra games. they have the facilities and population to host big events like this. Plus Its good for the best of concacaf to perform on a big stage other than the World Cup. (I havent finished the video yet so maybe he agrees with me)

Great video! Adding to the economic crisis in Ecuador there is a cartel war going on with the state which boiled over at the start of the year when cartel members stormed a tv station in a live broadcast and held them hostage and two of the most powerful drug kingpins in the country fled captivity. Since then the president Daniel Noboa has declared an internal armed conflict against the cartels. I highly doubt the Copa América would have gone ahead in Ecuador under these circumstances.

Listen bro... I love u and your content, but this right here is a bad perespective on the look of the copa america. In ancient times as is (or what feels ancient at this point) people used to see north, central (yeah cuz people just lump it in with north america), and south america as its own single continent (america). It was worldwide knowledge it was africa, america, asia, australia(yes australia was its own thing as well), and europe. This tournament brings the tournament back to its roots of how america as a whole should be viewed and is an effort to heavily advance football (or soccer if you are from the americas speaking english). Concacaf needs their countries to face higher competition to then perform better in the world cup, which in turn would have millions more in what u see as north america, tune in and/or fall in love with the sport. Conmebol has had a dying tournament for some time now because south america lacks more countries (obviously because south america wasn't supposed to be split into its own thing in the first place). The euros with their highly modern fields and vast countries to see go at it obv had copa beat. There is also the snobby "sophiticated" aesthetic that revolves around european soccer, that simply isn't carried around copa. For the most part in history, south america simply dazzled u with its "street soccer" as best emphasized by edu vargas sending iker casillas flying in the 2014 world cup, and as far as usa and canada stood, they didn't even care about it. You're not getting entertaining antics like luis suarez biting somebody, marcelo bielsa's squads 1v1 marking like it's basketball, or the tricks/skill moves of creative play in the euros. Set pieces, spaced out robotic formations, track athletes doing cardio with little to no technical ability is common, and crosses often gets boring.

Almost nobody in the Americas has a problem with this new format...it seems to be Europeans that don't like it lmao

As a peruvian fan, I think the Copa America in the USA was kind of a necesary step. The standard for football infrastructure has increased way past what any south american country but Brazil can offer. I want to see the Copa America here but we need time to recover and build infraestructure, Ecuador or Peru were'nt gonna cut it to be honest. We should maybe consider joint hosts in south america to distribute the infrastructure load between two or more countries. And about the prices, plane tickets from south america to USA are usually as expensive if not cheaper than plane tickets between south american countries, due to low demand.

As a Colombian living in the US, I was initially excited to have the copa América held here again. Then I saw the prices of some of the tickets were going for, and I quickly changed my mind. It would way cheaper to travel to Ecuador and attend a Copa América game there, if they would've hosted, than to attend the final in Miami even though I already live here

It would make so much sense for the Copa America and Concacaf Gold Cup to merge and create one Pan-American championship.

Sadly, Freddy Adu never got to played at Copa America.

I'm Chilean and to be honest the Copa America has always been a whatever detailswise. The history of the tournament is full of random bullshit, which makes you naturalizing any unusual thing. You said you would feel weird if 40% of the euros team aren't from Europe, but I wouldnt feel weird if the Copa America has several non Conmebol countries and even lacks a few Conmebol teams just because this happens from time to time It's not news if a dog bites a man but it's news if a man bites a dog sort of deal.

as a peruvian this video was so hard to watch holy shit. why isn’t there a single european channel who knows jack shit about conmebol, not even the littlest of knowledge😒

I think the main difference to us is that in Spanish, the word América means "the Americas" as a whole, (This is also where that whole "you can't call yourselves Americans" feud with Americans comes from) it's actually the "the Americas Cup" so it doesn't really feel weird at all that it's done in the US, it feels weird that Concacaf is not included, in fact, we've tried to invite all of the Concacaf to join officially, but they've always refused, stating that the level of the teams involved clearly favors South America.

Every country in the Americas that has made it to the Copa previously on merit, or is ranked by FIFA at least in the top 25, should be eligible, to host assuming they have the infrastructure and are safe enough to properly host. The US hosting Copa America is entirely appropriate. The only argument against it is that other countries should have been given further consideration, since the US has hosted 2 of the last 3. It's not inappropriate like Qatar hosting the World Cup.

They should stop inviting teams from Asia and Europe. They should stick to the format of keeping the 10 nations of South America and the rest from the North and Central America depending on their performance from concacaf gild cup and concacaf nations league

To be fair - I'd be all for Conmebol and Concacaf just flat out merging. I think it'd be excellent

As a Paraguayan American I am okay with the United States being the permament host for every single future edition of Copa America 👌🏼

As someone from concacaf I’m actually a huge fan of those collaborations and I think it’ll help our football in near future

As an American, I am also constantly priced out of tickets too, this stuff is ridiculous.

Lmao. You actually brought up the “high crime rate” and “mass shootings” like Brazil, Columbia, and other countries are just as bad. What a joke.

Careful, Americans are gonna get confused what America is. And who Americans are.

...but I came here for the history of Bronze Age Ecuador

Believe me, American citizens have a problem with the price gouging in every aspect of our entertainment industry. It's our politicians who are bought out by these corporations and don't give a crap. Although let's hope this antitrust suit against Ticketmaster can change some things.

Love your videos, but comparing the cops america in the us and the euros in Nigeria is an awful take.

just saying, north america and south america should be playing one continental competition

I am all for CONMEBOL and CONCACAF merging as much as possible. It will be great for the football quality of both continents. However, any deal has to have protections to avoid the USA swallowing up everything (money and hosting rights). Merging the Gold Cup and Copa America makes much sense; it is OK if its always all 10 CONMEBOL teams plus 6 CONCACAF. And I'd go as far as merging the Libertadores and CONCACAF Champions as well.

America needs to have a pan American confederation. Imagine US and Mexican clubs in the Libetadores.

Probably one of your worst videos to be honest. Copa America has long had guests in their tournament and they got embarrassing when CONCACAF teams stopped going (Qatar?). At least the US is in North America. It’s Copa America, not Copa Sur America lol. Plus it may be a good break for the CONMEBOL sides who play each other so much. And of course you forgot it’s not some random country, it gives the South Americans a chance to familiarize themselves with the main host of the next World Cup

The cultural and educational facts that many people ignore is that in the Anglo-Saxon world’s view, there are three Americas, North America, Central America (including the Caribbean) and South America; whereas in the Spanish speaking world also known as Latin America, there’s only one continent called AMERICA and it’s view as one whole region. So, having Canada, the United States and Mexico as well as Central American nations competing in the COPA AMERICA tournament makes a lot of sense. 👍

The fact is that it is impossible to have a proper tournament with 10 teams. So they have to invite someone. So why not join the Americas, who hundreds of millions of people across "both" continents view as one anyway, for a tournament to celebrate football, big and small, all across the Americas. Certainly should not be hosted in the US every or most of the time, but greater collaboration (and in my opinion hopefully a total merger) between concacaf and conmebol can help the game on both the men's and women's sides (a continental club competition for the women's game in the Americas would be awesome) and hopefully close the financial gap that uefa has on the rest of the world. I want to see a day where the best players from the Americas will be able to maximize their careers and lives on and off the pitch, much closer to home if they so choose. (Also, you mentioned that the partnership is on the women's side too, so far we had a combined concacaf gold cup with several conmebol nations taking part. Didn't get nearly enough prop but it was a very good tournament)

I like your videos but this one is not it

you need to talk about the welsh premier league. despite the recent success of the welsh national team, the league is seriously ignored, and only has 1 proffesional team (that happens to be in england ffs)

In Spanish there is no "North and South America" as separate continents. There is just one, America. For us the countries of "South America" are our brothers. Nothing weird playing this tournament together. If anything it bonds us stronger as a unified Latin American identity.

CONMEBOL and CONCACAF should merge lowkey, or at the very least share the Copa America and scrap the Gold Cup.

If the Copa America had always included all the Americas, not just South, and they wanted to split the tournament in North and South I reckon the same people who are getting angry now would've gotten angry in that scenario as well

Why is it so hard to comprehend north and south America are part of the AMERICAS… hence Copa America

Thanks Alfie, learned a lot about the Copper America today!

As a Peruvian, while I like having Copa America be only for South American teams, I don’t mind this new change. Conmebol needs more teams and access to a lucrative market; and concacaf needs more competition and stars. Having concacaf teams actually qualify and make it a round 16 also makes it feel more official than having 2 random teams get invited who tend to never actually take the competition seriously because their starting teams usually are playing in the gold cup for that summer. What I don’t like however is how little Americans know about the history of the Copa America, I noticing that now with how they talk about certain fixtures and conmebol teams. The traditions and culture will take some time to assimilate into but hopefully they don’t get lost. I hope they also don’t make all the Copas be in the USA, hopefully they still switching it up, eat least every other tournament. Overall what I’m trying to say is that out of all the greedy changes that are happening in soccer these days, this is probably one of the lesser evil, as long as the traditions from South America don’t get overshadowed because they’re not deemed marketable enough.

It’s Copa America, not Copa Sudamerica. It is nothing like having African or Asian teams in the Euros. Most people understand that there’s probably gonna be a merger or in the future, a proper Copa between both confederations. Also what you said about the Copa America being held every 4 years is simply untrue. It was held every for years only twice from 2007 to 2011 to 2015. Before that it was sporadically and usually every 2 or 3 years. Also no one who travels to the Copa America games even thinks about any political situations going on in the host nation unless the situation is absolutely dire. If it’s not a situation like Haiti then it’s perfectly fine to host it.

Truth is we South Americans know a tournament composed by just 10/12 teams isn't as amazing as a regular ol' 16 team tournament. And to be honest, we aren't exactly against extending the invitiation to the best teams in concacaf. We'd love to host a 24 nations tournament like the Euro but it's impossible

Hi Alfie, first of all amazing work, love your videos so much! Just to clarify, as a former Chilean resident I can say with some confidence that the concept of North/South America doesn't really exist in South America. The whole landmass is seen as just "América". In fact the colloquial term for citizens of the USA is "norteamericanos" a term which is even used in Mexico despite Europeans understanding Mexico itself as being in the continent of North America. So yeah, anyway, basically in their view America is a single continent.

Honduras has more silverware in Copa America than Venezuela. A 3rd place finish in 2001.

Latin Americans refer to America as one continent. Anglos refer to it as North and South

I think this topic is more nuanced than the video covered. But it is nice to see a video about Copa America. So, thanks for it! As a Brazilian, it's not that common of a complaint US hosting the Copa America. It will be if the rotation stops, and some people are saying that the 2024 Copa America will be in the US as well. That's more concerning for me, at least. As for the number of participants, a 16-team cup is viewed as a way better tournament than a 10 or 12 one. And for the best ones to be invited, culturally and practically, are the ones from Concacaf. We even sometimes wonder about the Mexican teams to come back to Libertadores as well. Also, here in Brazil and in other countries, we don't call our continent "South America". It's "America," including the North and the South. And, besides the memes between Mexico and Argentina, we see many countries in the North as our brothers and sisters. We share a culture and a heritage. We see the same series, telenovelas, listen to the same music (Brazil, not always), and eat some of the same foods. We also have rivalries with countries from the North, with Mexico and Argentina as a big example of it. So, it's still a little sad to see Copa America far from the South. But, if that's something to happen from time to time, with a 16-team tournament, that's not that big of a deal, I think.