Argentina began their attempt to win the Copa America for a record-equalling 15th time in underwhelming fashion, as they could only draw 1-1 with Chile in their opening match. Lionel Messi scored with a trademark free-kick from around 25 yards to open the scoring for Argentina – this goal also took him level with Cristiano Ronaldo for the most goals from free-kicks for club and country, in another battle for the records between these two giants of modern football. The Argentines should have scored quite a few more, with Lautaro Martinez and Nicolas Gonzalez missing a number of chances, and Chile eventually made them pay in the second half. A penalty, awarded by VAR around 12 minutes into the second half and taken by Arturo Vidal, was actually saved by Emiliano Martinez in the Argentina goal, but Eduardo Vargas got to the rebound first to equalize. Check out our analytics report from this Copa America 2021 match for all the key statistics and insight.
