Porto Alegre (Brazil): Peru stunned defending champions Chile 3-0 to reach the final of the Copa America for the first time in 44 years.
Goals from Edison Flores, Yoshimar Yotun and Paolo Guerrero handed Peru a deserved win which sends them into a final against Brazil at the Maracana Stadium, Sunday.
The stunning upset prevented Chile’s golden generation from challenging for a third straight title, following their wins over Argentina in 2015 and 2016.
Instead the finalists from the previous two editions will meet in Saturday’s third-place play-off in Sao Paulo.
Little was expected of Peru in the knock-out stages after they ended the group phase with a humbling 5-0 thrashing by Brazil.
But after riding their luck — and being saved by VAR three times — to beat Uruguay on penalties in the quarter-final, they were a completely rejuvenated outfit in Porto Alegre.
Goalkeeper Pedro Gallese, the villain of that 5-0 defeat, was again faultless, as he had been in the quarter-final when decisively saving Luis Suarez’s shoot-out penalty.
He again saved a penalty and made a number of other vital stops.
AFP