This Saturday, at 8:00 p.m. in Chile, La Roja and Canada will play to advance to the quarterfinals of the Copa América 2024. For Ricardo Gareca’s team, who will not be on the bench due to suspension, only winning will do. Any other result will see them eliminated in the group stage after 20 years in this tournament.
Gareca’s suspension, however, is not the only thing that worries the Chilean squad in the lead-up. This Friday, The final practice at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex was postponed for more than an hour due to heavy rain. which fell in Orlando, between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.
The issue, however, was already being evaluated at Conmebol. AS Chile was at the Inter&Co Stadium in the morning and there everyone was already clear about the situation they will face on Saturday: at match time the rain could be similar (or even worse) than the last matchday, with loud thunder and lightning, even starting much earlier, at around 4:00 p.m.
For this reason, all the staff that works at the Florida campus had a kind of induction to learn about the protocols. “If there is thunder and lightning at the time the match is due to start, it must be postponed until it stops. If it starts when the game is already underway, it must be stopped immediately and everyone must be removed from the stands,” said one of the match authorities, in conversation with AS.
“The idea is that players, referees and everyone working on the pitch go to the dressing rooms. Fans, journalists and everyone else must protect themselves in the covered areas inside the stadium. Is that enough? Yes, obviously. The venue is large, and to a large extent it is designed for that as well, but the important thing is to do it in an orderly and fast manner,” the source added.
Postponing the match to Sunday is almost impossible and Chile is the example
Regarding the possibility that the game will finally not be played on Saturday and will be postponed to Sunday, a version that gained strength in the last hours of Friday, the authorities are clear. “It is very difficult for that to happen, it would have to be too big a storm and that, according to the forecasts, is not going to happen. The worst scenario is that the match must be postponed for several hours, as happened precisely with Chile vs Colombia in Chicago, in the semifinals of the Copa América Centenario 2016. But yes or yes the idea is that it be played this Saturday, even if it is late . “What happens is that postponing a game for another day, with such a short schedule, alters everything and that will never be the idea, especially in these definition stages,” closed the Orlando authority.
