Saturday brings us further action from the Copa America quarter-finals with Uruguay taking on Colombia at the Estádio Nacional de Brasília in what is expected to be a tightly fought contest between these two nations.
Uruguay finally got themselves together and clicked into gear as they finished runners-up behind Group A winners, Argentina, thanks to back-to-back victories against Bolivia 2-0 and Paraguay 1-0 in their final two matches of the group phase.
Uruguay had earlier struggled to find the back of the net as they succumbed to Argentina 1-0 in their opening group match before claiming an important point in an underwhelming 1-1 draw with Chile.
However, the bigger picture suggests that Uruguay could be tough to beat here as they’ve lost just three of their last 16 matches in all competitions, with two of the three losses being against Brazil and Argentina.
Forwards, Cavani and Suarez are expected to create a few goalscoring opportunities in this tie and you’d have to think that sooner or later, the calibre of these two strikers should convert these chances into goals.
Onto Colombia, and they finished in 3rd place in Group B after winning just one of their four group matches and were helped somewhat by the fact that four of the five nations of each group progressed through to these quarter-finals.
Colombia’s only other highlight came in the form of a 0-0 draw with Venezuela but they ended their group campaign having suffered back-to-back defeats against Peru and Brazil, both by 2-1 margins and this doesn’t bode well for this quarter-final tie.
Colombia have also failed to beat Uruguay in each of their previous three meetings against their Saturday’s opponents, losing two of these games by a 3-0 scoreline.
Although, together with their recent slump in results of late, Colombia could have their work cut out to match their more illustrious opponents on Saturday evening.
Uruguay head into this clash with back-to-back wins while Colombia have been on the end of back-to-back defeats.
So, the edge appears to be with Uruguay here but this could be a tight one with perhaps a single goal separating the two sides in this last eight encounter.