Luis Suarez ‘not ready’ to return for dangerous Mexico + Copa America Day 3 UAE times

Copa America Day 3 times (Monday morning UAE):

Jamaica v Venezuela, 3.30am

Mexico v Uruguay, 6am

Mexico might have its best team ever to compete in the Copa America, and the opening game will be against a Uruguay team without their best player.

At a news conference Saturday evening, Urugauy coach Oscar Tabarez officially ruled out Luis Suarez for Sunday night’s match.

“He is a footballer that always surprises us with his recovery,” Tabarez said, “but he is not ready yet.”

Suarez injured a hamstring two weeks ago.

Tabarez’s comment came about an hour after Mexico coach Juan Carlos Osorio said he wouldn’t be surprised if Suarez plays, calling him “one of the top five forwards of the world”.

Now Uruguay – 15-time champions in a competition known as the South American championship for most of its existence – will be clear underdogs against a deep, talented Mexico team who are on a 19-game unbeaten streak and have not been scored upon in the last 730 minutes.

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Osorio talked of a goal of finishing in the top three in the Copa America competition, and could do better than that. Mexico join Argentina and possibly Brazil as favourites for the Copa America Centenario, commemorating 100 years since the competition began.

Mexico have made it to the Copa America finals twice but never won.

“Right now we believe we are a good enough team to make it possible,” midfielder Andres Guadardo said.

It could be the toughest match in Group 3 for either team, and Mexico are at home away from home with the tournament being staged in the US. They had big, supportive crowds in friendlies in Atlanta and San Diego and could get a bigger, more boisterous pro-Mexico gathering at University of Phoenix Stadium Sunday night.

“We have a lot of fans here and we feel it,” defender Jorge Torres Nilo said. “But when you have the crowd and things like that, it’s not the difference in what happens on the field. Basically there’s just going to be way more people supporting us and that’s it.”

Torres Nilo said the players “try not to think about the winning streak much”.

“A streak is a game-by-game thing.

“To win we have to beat a high-calibre team with big-time players. It’s not going to be an easy match.”

Osorio has kept opponents guessing with a variety of line-ups.

Tabarez said he has a suspicion of what Mexico will do but does not know for certain.

Uruguay defender Jose Maria Gimenez said he is fine with his team being underdogs.

“We don’t want to be the favourite for a moment,” he said. “We’ll do the same work we always do. We try to ignore all the other stuff.”

Despite speculation to the contrary, Uruguay players had always said they expected to be without Suarez and were preparing with that in mind.

“We knew we weren’t going to have him from the start,” midfielder Egidio Arevalo Rios said. “We’ll do the best we can without him. When teams know they won’t have to face Luis Suarez they might feel OK, but we have others who can step in.”

In Day 3’s other match, Jamaica, one of the extra North and Central American and Caribbean federation (Concacaf) teams invited to make this a special 16-team tournament, take on unfancied Venezuela. The Venezuelans have never finished higher than fourth in the tournament, which they achieved in 2011. Jamaica participated for the first time last year and failed to get out of the group stage.

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