Copa America Winners Tip: Colombia

We’ve studied the form and come up with half a dozen reasons why last year’s World Cup quarter-finalists can go all the way in Chile.

-Wealth of attacking talent

Currently ranked 4th in the world rankings, they should have the firepower to overwhelm a couple of their Group C opponents. The roll call includes James Rodriguez - who won the Golden Boot in Brazil, Jackson Martinez and Carlos Bacca.

-They also have some guy called Radamel Falcao

You might think ‘big deal’ after his poor spell with Man Utd but the captain is still a different player when he pulls on a yellow jersey. The former Atletico Madrid star has already found the net 4 times in 3 outings for his country in 2015.

-The defence looks solid as well

The 2001 Copa America champions have only conceded twice in their last seven outings and Arsenal’s David Ospena is claiming a few clean sheets.

-Form is great

Colombia have won their last seven matches and dazzled with 11 goals in their first 4 victorious matches at last summer’s World Cup. And that was all without Falcao.

-The draw is kind

Jose Pekerman’s boys should have too much class for whoever awaits in the quarter-finals and they are scheduled to avoid Brazil and Argentina until the final.

-Rivals are beatable

They are likely to face Chile (4/1 Skybet) in the semis and that will be tough. However, we saw what can happen to hosts in Brazil last year and indeed when Argentina were derailed on home soil in the 2011 Copa America.

Brazil (7/2 Coral) will do well to recover from their national humiliation to go all the way here while it remains to be seen whether Messi can avoid exhaustion after a long campaign. Remarkably, Argentina (2/1 Betfred) haven’t won a major trophy since 1993 and are frequent nearly men.

For all these reasons, Colombia look like the value bet to win the Copa America at best odds of 13/2 with Bet365.