Uruguay win shootouts to finish 3rd at Copa America

Uruguay finished third at the Copa America after a 4-3 penalty shootout victory over Canada following Luis Suarez’s dramatic injury-time equaliser.

Canada’s Ismael Kone saw his spot-kick saved by goalkeeper, Sergio Rochet, and Alphonso Davies missed to hand Uruguay victory.

The match at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium went to penalties after it had ended 2-2 in normal time.

Rodrigo Bentancur had earlier fired Uruguay ahead before goals from Kone and Jonathan David put Canada 2-1 up.

However, Suarez equalised in the second minute of injury time for Uruguay to take the contest to spot-kicks.

Suarez scored his effort to make it 4-3 in the shootout after Federico Valverde, Giorgian de Arrascaeta and Bentancur had all converted.

Davies then struck the crossbar with an attempted panenka and bounced out.

Uruguay boss, Marcelo Bielsa, felt his side “barely deserved” to make it to the shootout and felt they underperformed in the tournament as a whole.

“I thought that given our roster, we could have played a bit better than what we showed,” he said.

Canada boss, Jesse Marsch, praised the overall performance of his side as they used the tournament as a stepping stone to the 2026 World Cup which they are co-hosting with the United States and Mexico.

Marsch added: “We’re still a young team. It’s not so easy to build a tactical model with such short time and under such big stresses against such good opponents.” –BBC