The history of the Argentine National Team in the Copa América is very rich for the titles, but also for the great players who visited the blue and white in the oldest national team tournament in the world. Its prominence is absolute since the first edition and its 15 titles are not enough to describe it.
The Argentines were the first to organize the contest, in Buenos Aires in 1916. They received Uruguay, Brazil and Chile and played the final against the Charrúas, in two chapters that remained in history, since the Sunday on which it was scheduled did not occur. It was possible to compete due to the enormous crowd that filled the modest Gimnasia y Esgrima stadium and it was decided on Monday, when the visitor won the title.
The following year he was runner-up again and in Brazil 1919 he came third. After another runner-up finish in Chile 1920, He achieved his first crown in 1921, as a local. With three wins in three games, the team that had its scorer in Julio Libonatti made the Olympic turn.
Then, between 1925 and 1929 he won three more titles. Some of the first heroes of Argentine football shone in those exploits. Manuel Ferreira, Roberto Cherro, Carlos Peucelle and Manuel Seoane among them. Then, the majority of the squad played in the first World Cup and was runner-up against continental rival, Uruguay.
Between 1937 and 1947 was the real one golden era of the Argentine National Team, which due to the Second World War could not be crowned with a world title. In that period he won five South American tournaments, with the help of true stars of the time, such as Alberto Zozaya, Francisco Varallo, Vicente de la Mata and Bernabé Ferreyra in the late thirties and Tucho Méndez (the tournament’s all-time top scorer), Rinaldo Martino , Mario Boyé, José Manuel Moreno, René Pontoni and Alfredo Di Stéfano himself in the forties.
In the fifties he won three other Cups, with the one remembered in 1957 as the most notable. In Lima, “the Carasucias” shone, a team full of youth players that defeated Brazil, which was preparing to become world champion the following year. Humberto Maschio, Antonio Angelillo and Omar Sívori were its figures.
Then came a long continental drought in which he did win his two world titles and regained the crown in 1991 and 1993, the latest celebrations of Argentine football. Without Diego Maradona but with Gabriel Batistuta, Oscar Ruggeri, Diego Simeone and Fernando Redondo, the Albiceleste was two-time champion in Chile and Ecuador.
Lionel Messi lost the final of the 2015 Copa América and the 2016 Centenario against Chile. In 2019, Argentina was unable to reach the final and had to settle for third place.
In 2021 he had revenge and shouted champion by the hand of Messi and Angel Di Mariathe author of a great goal in the final against Brazil, at the Maracaná.
