In the early hours of Saturday, Venezuela and Canada go head-to-head in the quarter-finals of the Copa America 2024.
VenezuelaFernando Batista’s team was one of the surprise packages of the group stages. They topped Group B ahead of Ecuador, Mexico, and Jamaica. La Vinotinto won all their games and finished with a goal difference of five.
Venezeula's results at the Copa have been slightly surprising, as they were winless in their previous five games before the tournament kicked off.
One notable facet of Venezuela’s performances so far has their defensive displays. They have conceded just once in their last four international outings.
The 2024 Copa has broken Venezuela's poor streak in the competition. Before the latest edition of the Copa, they were winless in five games, having failed to score in four of the games in the poor run.
They haven’t had such problems at Copa2024, scoring six goals in three group games, clearly indicating their attacking threat.
CanadaLes Rouges finished second place in Group A by claiming four points from their three group games. However, they made it through to the last eight despite finishing the campaign with a -1-goal difference.
One positive for Canada is that they kept clean sheets in their last two games in Group A, although they only found the net once in a 1-0 win over Peru.
Their recent games have been low-scoring, with under 2.5 goals scored in their previous four matches in all competitions.
The victory over the Incas was a rare triumph for Jesse Marsch’s team, as they have won just one of their last five international matches.
What am I backing?This game could be a relatively tight encounter. However, Venezuela has positive momentum going into this match, and I am backing the South Americans to record a narrow win.