Last week was a happy time for several South American teams, with a number of big results in CONMEBOL’s qualifying efforts for the 2018 World Cup. Of course, if there’s a bunch of happy teams in any qualifying tournament, there’s also a bunch of unhappy teams, and two of those are going head to head as Argentina get set to host Colombia on Tuesday.
Argentina vs. Colombia 2016 live stream: Start time, TV schedule, and 3 things to know
Both Argentina and Colombia are unhappy with their results from last week, and are looking to do much better this time around.
Photo by Pedro Vilela/Getty Images
Argentina are coming into this match angry, having been embarrassed by Brazil in a heavy 3-0 loss that they hardly looked competitive in. Argentina can be a dangerous team when they’re angry — but they can also be dangerous to themselves, because they have a lot of players who can get a little over-aggressive in a variety of ways, and that’s a good way to beat yourself. Especially facing an opportunistic team like Colombia, themselves looking to prove a point after a poor draw against Chile last week. Teams have to make sure they don’t open up weaknesses to exploit, so that will be a big challenge for Argentina to face in this match.
TV: beIN Sports en Español (U.S. - Spanish), Canal 7, TyC Sports (Argentina), Caracol (Colombia)
Online: beIN Sports Connect (U.S.), TyC Sports Play (Argentina), Caracol Play (Colombia)
Match Date/Time: Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 p.m. local
Venue: Estadio San Juan del Bicentenario, San Juan, Argentina
Three big things to know
- Neither of these teams played well at all last week, with Argentina getting absolutely embarrassed by Brazil and Colombia pretty much sleepwalking through their match against Chile despite playing at home. Both of these teams need to bounce back, and that could add an interesting edge to the match, especially with their qualifying standings starting to look a little shaky.
- Speaking of shaky qualifying standings, Argentina are in a bad place and are running out of time to fix it. They’re in sixth place right now, which puts them on the outside looking in — only the top four teams in CONMEBOL are guaranteed a spot in the 2018 World Cup, with the fifth-place team, currently Chile, going to an intercontinental playoff. Their loss last week leaves them a point behind Chile, and eight behind group-leading Brazil. That may not sound like much, but with one win in their last five matches it becomes starkly apparent that Argentina have a lot of ground to make up.
- Colombia aren’t that much better off — despite being in third, they’re only two points ahead of Argentina and their form is only slightly better with two wins in five. They’ve largely been struggling with stars being injured over the last few months, though even when their important players have been healthy, they’ve still been largely unimpressive of late. If Colombia want to really assert themselves as one of the teams in South America heading to the World Cup in 2018, they need to start finding ways to pick up wins, and a win in Argentina would be a big statement that they’re going to be one of the teams to beat.
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