A handful of North American teams got the opportunity to participate in Copa America this summer. The tournament, which is usually made up of teams in South America’s footballing federation CONMEBOL, is taking place in the United States this year, but despite that, the USMNT did not make it out of their group. Nor did the other usual powerhouse of North American football, Mexico.
In a surprising turn of events, Canada was able to get out of a group that included Argentina, Chile, and Peru. They came in second place in Group A, got to the knockouts, and won their quarterfinal game against Venezuela in penalties. Now, on Tuesday night, the Canadians will take on Lionel Messi and Argentina with a spot in the final on the line, and in a show of national pride, Drake posted to his Instagram Story that he’s put $300,000 on them pulling off the upset.
Drake really put $300K on Canada to upset Argentina in the Copa América semifinals
@br_betting pic.twitter.com/G2iGQZTcDz
— B/R Football (@brfootball) July 9, 2024
Now, I certainly won’t say that this is a guaranteed loss (and I think this one would not classify as the Drake Curse rearing its ugly head), but Canada faces one heck of an uphill climb here. Not only are Argentina the defending winners of this tournament, and not only are they the defending World Cup winners, but the two teams were actually in the same group as one another and played in the opening game of the tournament, which Argentina won, 2-0.
Canada is an incredible story, as they’ve gotten to this point under American manager Jesse Marsch, and the fun quirk of this tournament is that things go right to penalties after regulation, so they wouldn’t need to hold on for dear life through 30 minutes of extra time if things are level after 90 minutes. That means pulling the upset is ever so slightly easier … but that wouldn’t mean much for Drake’s bet, as his bet is for Canada to win in regulation.