This year's Copa América is just around the corner, but CONMEBOL has already announced where the next one will take place...in just over a year.
Football's governing body in South America revealed more details on the 2020 Copa América earlier today. The tournament will now be held once every four years, in order to comply with FIFA's schedule that will allow players some more down time between seasons.
With this scheme, the South American competition will now take place during the same summer as the UEFA Euro, which will also come in handy to FIFA's plans of having one international calendar for all federations to follow.
But the tournament's periodicity will not be the only thing that will change in the South American tournament. The 2020 edition will be played in two countries for the first time in history. Argentina and Colombia have been named co-hosts of the next edition, which will see the schedule increase the number of games to 38, that's twelve more than the ones played with the current format.
Added to that change, twelve teams will be divided in two groups of six. The "Zona Norte" (Northern Division) will include Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Perú, and Ecuador. The "Zona Sur" (Southern Division) will be composed by Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, and Bolivia. Two more teams will be invited to play in this tournament, but their identities will be revealed at a later date.
According to Alejandro Domínguez, CONMEBOL's president, the main goal of this change "is to give the fans more chances to watch their national teams play. The regular fan will be able to watch five games of their national team, which will give the tournament a boost and will add value to this celebration," he stated.
Four out of six teams in each group will make it to the tournament's knockout stage, which will lead to the quarterfinals, semi-finals and the title clash.
