• Uruguay advances to the Copa America 2024 semifinals
  • Eder Militao and Douglas Luiz missed penalties for Brazil in the shootout
  • La Celeste will face Colombia on Wednesday, July 8 at 8 p.m. ET

Uruguay defeated Brazil in a penalty shootout at Copa America 2024, sending home the fourth ranked team in the world in the quarter-finals.

Brazil had an underwhelming group stage at Copa America 2024, only securing one victory and settling for second place of Group D behind Colombia. While James Rodriguez and co. got to face Panama in the quarter-finals, Selecao must take on Uruguay, the Group C winners, without Vinicius Jr., who is serving a suspension for yellow card accumulation.

How the game unfolded

As soon as the match kicked off, Brazil were on the back foot. Uruguay enjoyed near-constant possession for the first 25 minutes, pinning the Selecao in their own half. Marcelo Bielsa's squad had a few good looks on goal, including two dangerous headers from Darwin Nunez, but for all their dominance, they failed to register a shot on target.

Endrick and Raphinha slowly got Brazil back into the game, using their speed on the counter attack to produce Brazil's first chances of the match, but they both lacked the quality in the final third to truly test Sergio Rochet. Harsh fouls quickly became the story of the rest of the half, eliminating any fluidity in the final 15 minutes. Both sides retreated down the tunnel deadlocked at 0-0.

Unfortunately, the second half was filled with more poor touches and heavy challenges from both sides that led to continued broken play. Tensions reached a boiling point when Nahitan Nandez committed a dangerous foul on Rodrygo, lunging in studs up and making direct contact with the winger's ankle. Originally, the Uruguayan was shown a yellow, but after a VAR review, he was sent off in the 75th minute.

Despite being a man up, the Selecao could not produce any noteworthy chances in the final 15 minutes of the game. The match ended with 41 fouls before coming down to an inevitable penalty shootout. Eder Militao and Douglas Luiz missed penalties for Brazil. Although Andreas Pereira and Gabriel Martinelli buried their chances, and Alisson made one save, it was not enough to deny Uruguay.

La Celeste advanced 4-2 on penalty kicks to the semifinals, sending Brazil home.