Bravo Brasil! Bravo South America!

South America's continental soccer championship, the Copa America, concluded yesterday with thrilling victory for Brazil over Argentina, in what is arguably international soccer's best rivalry. It was a fantastic end to a great tournament and proves that, contrary to popular snobbery, there's some pretty good soccer to be found outside Europe.

Though often seen as the weak sister to the European championship, the Copa America often produces more compelling soccer than its European counterparts, as South Americans eschew negative soccer. A large part of the soccer artistocracy tends to fetishize defense. A certain mentality insists that any goal conceded MUST be the result of poor defending and can't possibly be the result of great attacking play. Thus their solution is defend even more and take fewer chances, especially in big games. The attacking mentality is considered naive.

This is a fairly recent development. No World Cup final participant, winner or loser, was held without a goal until 1990. Yet 5 of the last 8 finalist teams failed to score in the big game. The modern fan can barely conceive of a World Cup final with 5 combined goals, like the 1970 classic.

South Americans tend to reject this mentality. Even when the matches didn't have a lot of goals, they did have a lot of chances. That's what fans want to see: excitement. Not a single Copa America contest ended 0-0.

Though the quality of play might not have been as high (and this Reuters article even takes issue with that suggestion), it was far more interesting for neutrals to follow.

Take the final. It was an end-to-end affair with a lot of chances on goal. Argentina probably had more chances on goal in the 2nd half than both teams had in the entireity of the Euro 2004 final. Argentina appeared to score a deserved late winner in the 87th minute only to have Brazil equalize on the last kick of the game. The match went straight to the odious penalty shootout, on which the world champions prevailed. Such a back-and-forth game would never been seen in a major European final, or, probably, a World Cup final. Such a thrilling contest requires both teams to adopt a positive mentality. This was consistently done throughout the Copa America.

If Americans saw more of this kind of soccer, and less of the hyperdefensive, "sophisticated" borefest that dominates the big games they DO watch, the sport might be more popular as a television sport.