Copa America Centenario Preview

The Copa America Centenario kicks off Friday night with USA vs. Colombia. There are 32 games over the next 24 days in what is a huge tournament for CONCACAF and CONMEBOL. The tournament will culminate at MetLife Stadium on June 26th.

In preparation for the tournament, we’ve compiled tournament projections from 5 different ranking systems to provide a cumulative projection. Before we get into the group/title projections, we’ll lay out all of the projections.

 

Group A

This is looking like a pretty competitive group. Costa Rica and USA are two of the best three teams in CONCACAF. Colombia’s average ranking across all 5 ranking systems is 4.4. Nobody ranks them below #7 in the world. And even Paraguay has been much improved with a strong start to World Cup Qualifying. But the projections are all in line here. Every system has it Colombia, USA, Costa Rica, Paraguay. That’s with USA’s home advantage. This group looks like Colombia’s to lose, even though they are missing some stars. There is, however, over a 50% chance that either Costa Rica or Paraguay advance. There should be some great games in Group A.

 

Group B

Things get a bit more dicey here. Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru are all capable of advancing out of this group. Every system is in agreement that no group has 3 teams with a better chance to get through. Haiti might be in over their heads a bit here. Unfortunately they got grouped with 3 CONMEBOL teams. who are all very solid. Again, across the board, everyone is expecting Haiti to finish with the fewest points in the group stage. We’re going to go with Brazil and Ecuador to advance out of this group, but it could be any of the CONMEBOL teams. It would be a huge surprise to see Haiti advance, but it’s awesome that they’re in the tournament on the biggest stage.

 

Group C

From the most competitive group to the biggest divide. We give Uruguay and Mexico about an 80% each of advancing. Jamaica and Venezuela are lagging behind in quality. Not that either team is bad, but the teams in Pots 3 and 4 were all destined to end up with two strong teams. Elo has the biggest discrepancy. They project over a 4 point gap between 2nd and 3rd place. Wow! The Reggae Boyz could surprise. We like them a lot. Still looks like the big two from this group.

 

Group D

Argentina and Chile in the same group is ridiculous. Panama isn’t any slouch, either. To project Panama with that many points in a group with those big boys speaks volumes to their quality. This may be the best group top to bottom. Unfortunately, Bolivia might be in some trouble. To get into the top 2 is going to be tough. Argentina and Chile are the teams to beat for sure.

 

Knockout Stage

Here are our projected odds to win Copa America Centenario. We like Argentina and Colombia best. By system, here are the teams projected to hoist the trophy:

• WGF: Argentina
• CTR: Argentina
• Elo: Argentina
• ChanceDeGol: Brazil
• ThePowerRank: Argentina

Pretty decisive! ChanceDeGol is the only system to not have Argentina as its champion. And they have Argentina ranked #2 in the world, just 0.05 goals worse than Brazil.

With Messi in and Neymar at the Olympics, it’s gotta be La Albiceleste’s to lose. Agree or disagree? Leave some comments below, and follow us on Twitter @We_Global! Enjoy!