South American football is currently undergoing a shaky phase. The Copa America 2021, just 13 days before kick-off, was shifted from Argentina to Brazil. However, it hasn’t ended there.
Just two days before the World Cup qualifying game between the rivals in Argentina and Chile has been hit hard with a controversy. BBC understands that Chilean players spotted a drone flying above their training ground before bringing it down with one of their own drones.
The initial understanding of the situation by Chile was that Argentinian football team were using the drone to spy on the Chile training session.
Fortunately, though, the drone turned out to be from a Chilean energy company Enel who were apparently using the device to check the street lighting.
It is understood that Chilean boss Martin Lasarte took the decision to bring down the device. The incident has been labelled as an “accident” by Chile’s National Professional Football Association although there are quite a few who think that the drone was brought down deliberately.
This incident took place above the Juan Pinto Duran Stadium in Santiago.
This reminds football fans across Europe of the infamous ‘Spygate’ incident in 2019 wherein Leeds United coach Marcelo Bielsa issued a formal apology to Derby County as he admitted to having spent a member of the backroom staff to their training ground to spy on Frank Lampard’s side and the tactics they were going to employ against United.
All things aside, Argentina versus Chile promises to be a mouth-watering clash as we are set to get a real look at both the teams ahead of the Copa America.
