The Copa America was created in 1916 as a way for the South American National teams to compete in a local tournament by a host country. Argentina would host the first-ever Copa America to celebrate the centennial of its independence, only Chile, Uruguay and Brazil participated.
Since then the tournament has grown in popularity and because of the great South American stars that compete in the tournament, is now watched worldwide whenever an edition is held. The United States, for example, competed in 4 editions of the tournament, placing 4th in 1995 and 2016.
One of the oddest stats the tournament has is the longest match in Copa America history, to which we need to go all the way back to the 1919 edition. That Copa America was held by Brazil and once again only Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay were invited to play.
Chile would finish fourth and Argentina third, leaving Uruguay and Brazil to contend for the final in Rio de Janeiro, in the Estádio das Laranjeiras. The game was a tight 0-0 affair and had to go to extra time. Two 30 minute extra time halves were played until Arthur Friedenreich scored for Brazil and gave the host national their first Copa America title.
Arthur Friedenreich scored the goal to give Brazil the title. (Paneka.org)
In total the match lasted 150 minutes, the longest in the tournament’s history, a record that will most likely not be broken since currently there are no extra times in Copa America matches except for the finals, and even then they are only 15-minute halves.
An interesting side note is that Arthur Friedenreich was the first black man to play for the Brazilian National team as back then only white members of high society could play for the national team.
