Copa América

Copa América is contested by CONMEBOL's ten national teams — Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Many modern editions also include guest teams from outside South America, usually to create a larger group-stage format. The guests are often from CONCACAF, although Asian sides have also been invited in the past.

Copa América was first held in 1916 and has been contested at various intervals since, making it the world's oldest still-running national-team football tournament. It was originally called the South American Football Championship and was renamed Copa América in 1975, when CONMEBOL changed the competition's identity and format.

Modern editions have featured between ten and sixteen teams in the finals, usually split into groups before the knockout stage. Each team plays the others in its group once. The top teams from each group go through to the knockout rounds, which usually include quarter-finals, semi-finals, a third-place play-off and a final.

The exact number of teams and the knockout rules have varied from tournament to tournament. With ten CONMEBOL teams as the core, the number of guest teams sets the total field — commonly twelve or sixteen teams in expanded editions.

Tie-breaking rules can also vary by edition. Some knockout matches go straight to penalties if they are level after 90 minutes, while the final may use extra time before penalties. This means Copa América does not always use the same extra-time rules as the World Cup or European Championship.

Copa América is now intended to sit in the same four-year international cycle as the European Championship, usually in June and July between World Cups. The matches are normally played across about three to four weeks, after the European domestic season has finished — important because many leading South American players play their club football in Europe.

The four-year cycle is a relatively recent convention. For much of the twentieth century the tournament was held more often, sometimes every two years and at one point almost every year. Recent editions have also included irregular adjustments, but the competition is now treated as a four-year event again.

All ten CONMEBOL national teams qualify for every Copa América automatically. With only ten national associations in the confederation, a separate qualifying competition would not eliminate enough teams to be worth running.

Guest-team places are handled separately and depend on the agreement and format for each edition. In some tournaments teams have been invited directly by CONMEBOL, while in 2024 the six CONCACAF places were filled through the CONCACAF Nations League. Mexico and the United States have been among the most regular guests, but the list has also included Japan, Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama and Qatar in different years.

The Copa América winners may be invited to play the European champions in the CONMEBOL–UEFA Cup of Champions, often called the Finalissima, when that match is scheduled and staged. This single match continues a long tradition of one-off games between the South American and European champions, but it should not be treated as a guaranteed fixture after every tournament.

There is no qualifying path from Copa América into the World Cup. World Cup qualifying within CONMEBOL is a separate, long-running league competition between the same ten teams, played out across the years between World Cups.

The first South American Championship was held in 1916 in Buenos Aires to mark the centenary of Argentina's independence. Just four teams took part — Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay — with Uruguay winning the inaugural tournament. The competition was held regularly in the years that followed, sometimes annually, with Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil winning most of the editions between them.

The tournament took its current name in 1975, when CONMEBOL reorganised the competition under the Copa América identity. Guest teams from outside the confederation began to be invited from 1993 onwards, which expanded the field and raised the tournament's profile. The 2016 centenary edition was held in the United States, and the 2024 tournament returned there with another expanded field.

The Copa América Femenina is the senior women's equivalent, contested between the same ten CONMEBOL members. CONMEBOL also runs South American youth competitions, including under-20, under-17 and under-15 tournaments, with separate women's youth competitions at under-20 and under-17 level. These tournaments are followed less widely than the senior men's competition but often feed into the corresponding World Cup at each age group.