Copa America (June 3 – June 26/USA)

Copa America formerly known as South American Football Championship is contested among the South American football playing nation determining continental champion. It is the oldest
June-August-2016 -48 continental football championship whose first edition took place in Argentina on July 1916 with four teams – Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil contesting each other. This year the centennial edition of the tournament will be organized by USA in 10 cities from June 3 to June 26 where 16 teams will compete in 32 matches for the historical trophy. The current tournament format established in 1993 enables teams from two confederations – CONMEBOL & CONCACAF to make the tournament bigger in participation. This year the tournament is being held outside of South America for the first time. Uruguay has won the cup most number (15) of times followed by Argentina (14) and Brazil (8). The Championship trophy is called “Copa America” and the runner-up trophy is called “Copa Bolivia”. The host country of last tournament, Chile honors the position of current champion by beating Argentina through penalty in 2015. Teams like Brazil and Argentina are always the contender for the trophy whereas Colombia can be a surprised package riding on the back of James Rodriguez. The tournament will lose some of its limelight as stars such as Neymar will be missing due to other international (Olympic) commitments. Also Tevez and Dyabala is left out from the star studded Argentine team. Also the tournament will share some viewership as Euro 2016 and Copa America will be held simultaneously at the same period of time. The first match of the Copa America Centario will be held between the host country USA and Columbia on June 4, 7.30 am BST.