Celtic now has only one player competing in a major international event this summer after the United States was knocked out of the Copa America overnight.
Matheus Olivera scored in the 66th minute to give the United States a 1-0 loss against Uruguay. This ended a poor group stage in which they collected only three points, thanks to an easy victory against Bolivia on matchday one.
Last week’s 2-1 loss to Panama caused shockwaves across the competition.Cameron Carter-Vickers came on as a substitute in the second half, but Gregg Berhalter’s team struggled to defeat the group champions, led by Marcelo Bielsa.
Despite being the host nation, they have been eliminated, and Carter-Vickers and his team will take some time to recover before the next campaign. Nonetheless, they have reason to feel exceedingly hard done by following a contentious incident that altered the direction of the game.
United States wronged by controversial goal award
It is easy to blame bad luck on external circumstances; nevertheless, the United States has a legitimate reason to be upset after Olivera’s goal, which was awarded despite the Napoli player being offside beside one of his teammates.
As shown below on Premier Sports’ social media site X, both players are offside in the frame, yet referee Kevin Ortega awarded the goal.
Unfortunately, this proved to be the host nation’s undoing, as they were unable to answer on a day that effectively ended their Copa America dreams.
On the balance of play, Uruguay was the better team. According to Footmob, they had 12 shots on goal compared to the United States’ eight, resulting in two ‘big opportunities’ to none for the host team.
Carter-Vickers did not play a single minute of the match. Berhalter began with Tim Ream and Chris Richards before replacing the former with Malik Tillman in a last-ditch effort to salvage the match. It would have been pointless in the end because Panama’s 3-1 victory over Bolivia had already qualified them.
The Celtic player will recover for a few weeks before reporting to pre-season, with the possibility of going to the United States for the Hoops’ tour.
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