The Finals of the 2021 Copa Sudamericana™ have been played on November 20th. The winner of this year’s edition of the cup is Athletico Paranaense from Brazil, having now won this tournament for the second time. With this achievement, they play against the winner of the 2021 Copa Libertadores in the 2022 Recopa Sudamericana, and automatically qualify for the 2022 Copa Libertadores. A big congratulation to this major achievement from PayRetailers!
The match was a nail biter, with a 1-0 win for the team after 90 minutes. The also Brazilian player Nikão has been selected for man of the match due to his outstanding performance throughout 90 minutes as a right midfielder and his goal in the 29th minute that could be carried until the final whistle. Léo Ortiz has been the best player in the ranks of Bragantino, with a strong defense play and leadership due to being the team’s captain. The statistics show that Red Bull Bragantino was the dominant team, while Paranaense played strong in the first half, with sporadic minutes of denser pressure that led to the early goal. The second half, especially the last 15 minutes, have been bruteforced by Bragantino, with no noteworthy attacks by Paranaense. But in the end, Bragantino couldn’t score, so that Andrés Matonte from Uruguay stopped the match after 6 minutes of overtime with his final blow.
The stadium had an attendance of 20,000 fans. Although the official capacity is three times this number, the policymakers decided to let the fans show their support for their teams alongside the field with a diminished number of seats. This was a signal for a strong but caring football community, and it shows that football lives, no matter what circumstances humanity currently faces.
As we talked about in our last post, some colleagues of the PayRetailers team gathered in Montevideo to meet the people behind the CONMEBOL and watch the match. In the morning, the first appointment was an “Official Handshake” with media attendance. For our colleagues, this maybe was the most important event of the day, since being an Official Sponsor of the CONMEBOL Sudamericana™, we’ve put a lot of work into shaping our sponsorship with countless virtual meetings together with the CONMEBOL representatives. After these Covid induced limitations, this was a welcome opportunity to meet them in person and vividly talk about all the plans we forged – especially for our next season that will mark our second year of being an Official Sponsor for the CONMEBOL and this very competition.
The next activity of the day has been an official photo shoot with the teams and Sebastian Abreu, a Uruguayan football legend, at the venue of the Finals – the Estadio Centenario. At 2pm we went to the stadium and at 3pm the official meeting started. These have been hours packed with getting to know new people, exchanging ideas and celebrating the upcoming match.
Towards the evening, our team went to their dedicated VIP room to be able to watch the match together with the fans in the stadium.
PayRetailers wants to thank all people involved and looks forward to being an Official Sponsor of the CONMEBOL Sudamericana™ for the next season.
