Colombians described as Columbians, Chileans singing their national anthem a capella to try to beat a Pitbull song, Uruguayans with their hands over their hearts and a puzzled look as they heard Chile’s national anthem...
The Copa America Centenario has raised many eyebrows for reasons only loosely related to football.
Sportswear brand Adidas issued promotional posters for the Colombian national team, where a huge ‘Columbia’—as in the US river and university, as well as Washington’s full name—under James Rodriguez and his teammates.
Social networks were quick to make fun of the spelling mistake, and Colombian fans, presumably the ones Adidas was targeting as consumers with the posters, were furious. The brand apologised to the Colombian Football Federation and moved to replace the posters by others with the right country name.
“We value our partnership with the Colombian Football Federation and apologise for our mistake. We removed these graphics and are quickly installing new versions today,” an Adidas statement said.
The harm had of course been done by then. But it has hardly been the only blunder in the first few days of the tournament.
On Sunday, as players got ready for the match between Mexico and Uruguay in Phoenix, Chile’s national anthem was played instead of Uruguay’s.
“That is an important moment for every national team, and it is annoying not to be able to hear the anthem and sing it,” said Uruguay striker Edinson Cavani.
Uruguayan football authorities complained about the mistake, which the South American country’s media described as “disgraceful” and “unheard of”, and the Copa America’s organisers had to issue an apology for what they described as a human error.
“We will work with all parties involved to ensure such an error does not occur again,” they said.
However, it did. A day later, as Chile’s players sang their national anthem ahead of their game against Argentina, they suddenly started hearing Pitbull’s popular Mr Worldwide instead. The players kept singing simultaneously with the rapper, and when someone turned off the song without turning the anthem back on, fans and players sang the rest a capella.
Bolivia, who had already complained over being grounded for over three hours inside a plane for mechanical problems as they travelled from Orlando to Boston for their second game in the tournament, had their flag changed by mistake.
Early in their first match, against Panama, the Bolivian flag was shown upside down in Orlando’s Camping World stadium, so it in fact resembled Ethiopia’s.
Colombia winger Juan Cuadrado underwent a brief change of nationality when his name and picture were used to advertise the match between the hosts, the United States, and Costa Rica on social networks.
Someone apparently mistook him for Costa Rica’s Joel Campbell, who did indeed play that game in Chicago on Tuesday.
Colombia star James Rodriguez was doubtful to play their second game, against Paraguay, due to a shoulder injury. That unsettled organisers, who still had him off the starting line-up on the tournament’s website when he had already scored a goal and assisted Carlos Bacca for another.
The Copa America Centenario still has more than two weeks to go. At this rate, it is likely to leave plenty of anecdotes.