Lionel Messi won his 100th cap as Argentina beat Jamaica to finish top of Copa America Group B and probably avoid Brazil in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
The Argentina captain, 27, was kept at bay but Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuain fired home from inside the box.<\/p>\n
While Messi’s side had already qualified for the last 16, even a win would not have been enough for Jamaica.<\/p>\n
Forward DeShorn Brown made a mark though, posing for a selfie with Messi on the pitch after the final whistle.<\/p>\n
Defender Kemar Lawrence cleared the ball off the line and Argentina’s Higuain and Angel Di Maria both hit the bar as the 2014 World Cup runners-up easily outplayed a nation 62 places below them in the world rankings.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Uruguay and Paraguay also went through from Group B after a 1-1 draw in which both sides scored through headers from corners.<\/p>\n
Atletico Madrid defender Jose Gimenez had given Uruguay the lead only for Paraguay striker Lucas Barrios to equalise just before half-time.<\/p>\n
Paraguay qualify as runners-up and will play the winners of Group C, most likely Brazil, while Uruguay finished as one of two best-placed third teams and will face hosts Chile.<\/p>\n
Venezuela are currently third in Group C, the position Argentina will face, although all four teams in the pool are all on three points.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lionel Messi won his 100th cap as Argentina beat Jamaica to finish top of Copa America Group B and probably avoid Brazil in the quarter-finals. The Argentina captain, 27, was kept at bay but Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuain fired home from inside the box. While Messi’s side had already qualified for the last 16, even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":126806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-126805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/126806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}