Paolo Guerrero scored a second-half hat-trick as Peru took third place at the Copa America with a 4-1 win over Venezuela.
Hamburg striker Guerrero was involved in the opener as William Chiroque fired home three minutes from the break before ripping their opponents to pieces in the second-half, helped by the sending off of Venezuelan midfielder Tomas Rincon for fouling Carlos Lobaton.
It was Rincon’s second red of the tournament and marked the beginning of the end for a tiring side.
Guerrero drove in his second goal just after the hour mark and, after Juan Arango had briefly threatened a comeback by making it 2-1 in the 78th minute, Guerrero turned the screw with two further efforts in time added on.
“We are happy to have clinched third place,” said Guerrero. “We all fought hard for this and we knew we had a match like this in us.”
Guerrero’s goals took him top of the scoring charts at the event with a total of five. He said that personal achievement was secondary to a win which left Peru on the podium for the first time in 28 years.
“I work for the team — they are the most important for me,” he said. “We were disappointed to lose to Uruguay in the semi-final as we could have done better but third place is something.”
Coach Sergio Markarian said that the finish would encourage Peruvians to forget their dreadful last World Cup qualifying campaign.
“We have done some good work but we have won nothing yet and we must be more competitive as the qualifiers are a very different kettle of fish,” he said.
Venezuela coach Cesar Farias was sanguine after his team finally ran out of puff having matched Brazil in the first phase and then put out fancied Chile to reach their first semi-final before a loss to Paraguay on penalties.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 25th, 2011.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of the article was running an incorrect picture of Guerrero. The correct picture has been added.
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