For soccer fans, the day is finally here! It’s time for the highly-anticipated Copa America Tournament! The game kicks off (pun intended, of course) tonight at 8:00pm at Mercedes-Benz Stadium! The defending champs, Argentina, are taking on Canada in a showdown right here in the ATL.
What is the Copa America?
If you’re already a fan, you can scroll past this part… but for everyone watching the opening game right now, hurriedly googling it on their phone, lemme give you the lowdown.
The Copa America is one of the most prestigious soccer tournaments in the world. Six Concacaf (Concacaf stands for the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football) teams, which includes the U.S., Mexico, Jamaica, Panama, Canada and Costa Rica, will join ten CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation) teams, which includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Eduador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela for a 16-team tournament with matches held in 14 different cities!
The last time the US hosted the Copa America was in 2016. This is only the second time in 108 years of the Copa, that the tournament has been hosted outside of South America.
Oh, and you can impress the soccer fans in your life by knowing that this very well might be the final international tournament that soccer superstar Lionel Messi plays. (And he’s here in Atlanta RIGHT NOW!)
Details about the next Copa America match in Atlanta
Atlanta will host Team USA at Mercedes-Benz on Thursday, June 27th, 2024 against Panama. Come cheer for the U.S., Atlanta style at Mercedes-Benz! You can get tickets for the game here!
This year, Argentina is the favorite to win the tournament, but we’ll be watching to see how it goes!
If you don’t have tickets, you can also stream or watch the game on cable TV, or from one of your favorite sports bars in the ATL!