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'Tata' Martino anticipates Americas-wide Copa in future

Omar Vega / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Gerardo "Tata" Martino believes Copa America will include countries from the CONCACAF region in the future.

In its current format, the Copa America pits national teams from CONMEBOL (the football confederation of South American countries, with the exception of Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname) and a clutch of invited outfits from other federations against one another. Japan and Qatar are competing in the latest edition of the tournament currently underway in Brazil.

However, Argentinian manager Martino, who's currently overseeing Mexico at the CONCACAF Gold Cup, believes Copa America will soon be for both North and South America.

"The Gold Cup has been played for a long time, I'm the new face at this Gold Cup," Martino said, according to ESPN's Tom Marshall. "I'm not the person to change the format. The people that analyze the format (that) these tournament(s) should be played (in) are the specialists, I'm not.

"It seems to me that in time, one way or the other, we will get closer to a Copa America that is played between all the continent. When I say all the continent, I mean all the American continent."

Martino has previously voiced his want for Mexico to compete in next year's Copa America, but Qatar and Australia have already been confirmed as the invited participants for 2020. El Tri had competed in every Copa America since 1993 before this year.

So, instead of facing the likes of Brazil and Argentina, Mexico is widely tipped to win the 2019 Gold Cup this summer. Martino's ranks have beaten Cuba 7-0 and Canada 3-1 to begin their campaign, and face Martinique on Sunday to conclude their Group A commitments.

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