By Ignacio Naya, DPA
Caracas (Venezuela) : Defending champion Brazil advanced to the final of the Copa America defeating Uruguay 5-4 in a penalty shootout.
Brazil, coached by Carlos Dunga, is set to play Sunday's final in Maracaibo against the winner of the other semi final match between Argentina and Mexicon late Wednesday night.
"My footballers showed love for the jersey, they love the national team. I am very happy with them. These players have given up their holidays to come play the Copa America," Dunga said after the dramatic win.
Robinho – Brazil's brightest star, in the absence of Ronaldinho and Kaka – admitted that Tuesday night's semi-final against Uruguay was "very balanced, very difficult," though his teammate Maicon stressed that "Brazil deserved to get to the final, it was the better team."
Brazilian media acknowledged that Brazil scraped by to win. Website GloboEsporte.com said the national team defeated Uruguay "without much shine, but with quite a bit of perseverence."
"Full of suffering, but Brazil made it," the site commented.
In Tuesday night's game at Maracaibo, Brazil and Uruguay drew 2-2 after the regulation 90 minutes, leaving it to penalty kicks to decide on the finalist.Uruguay missed most when it came to sudden death, giving Brazil the vital 5-4 semi-final win.
In the first half of the match, Brazilian right-back Maicon opened the score in the 13th minute.
Two minutes later the lighting system in the stadium had problems, when one of four towers went dark. Play resumed 13 minutes later, with the problem still not resolved, although the lights were back to normal by the interval.
Uruguay put a lot of pressure on the Brazilian goal in the first half, in particular through Alvaro Recoba and Diego Forlan, but Brazilian keeper Doni responded well.
However, 10 minutes before half-time Doni blocked a ball and it fell for Forlan to equalize (1-1).
Brazil again took the lead in the 40th minute as Julio Baptista took advantage of a defensive mistake.
In the 69th minute, Uruguay's veteran striker Sebastian Abreu, who substituted for Recoba at half time, evened the score again (2-2).
"We wanted to settle the game as quickly as possible, we were not aiming for the penalty shootout. We had many chances but we could not convert," Dunga said.
Star Robinho, very active so far throughout Copa America, was hardly noticed in Brazil's lacklustre game until he easily dispatched the first penalty past Fabian Carini.
Uruguay captain Diego Lugano was the unfortunate player to make the definitive mistake in the sudden death, giving Brazil the win.
Three years ago, Brazil had also eliminated Uruguay in the semi-finals of the Copa America in Peru in the penalty shootout.
The third-place play-off will be held in Caracas Saturday between Uruguay and the loser of Wednesday's semi-final.
In Sunday's final Brazil will not be able to field captain Gilberto Silva, who received his second yellow card caution in two games.
"It is a pity, but I have two players to replace him with," Dunga said.
The Brazilian coach said he did not care whether Argentina or Mexico was his men's last hurdle on the way to the Copa America title in Venezuela.
"We are happy because we got to the final. The Copa America was never easy for Brazil," Dunga explained.
Indeed, both Argentina and Uruguay hold 14 titles in the oldest national teams competition in the world, to Brazil's seven. However, the Brazilians have been catching up lately and have won three of the four most recent editions, including 2004 in Peru 2004.
"In this tournament we are already better than one of those teams, Mexico or Argentina. One of them will not get to the final, we did. In football the only thing that matters is winning," Dunga stressed.
Robinho shared his coach's philosophy.
"If we do not win the tournament, this triumph will be worth nothing," said the Real Madrid striker.