The Copa America kicks off tonight, with 10 South American countries set to battle it out for the title of the continent's best. The tournament will take place in Brazil, with the host country hoping to banish the painful memories of the 2014 World Cup, the last tournament to be held on Brazilian soil.
They will have to do so without star man Neymar, who suffered an injury during a warm-up match for the tournament against Qatar.
Bizarrely, that match was also a warm-up for Qatar. That is because the Asian nation will also be competing in South America's showpiece event. They will be joined by continental rivals Japan in Brazil. So why are two Asian nations taking part in a competition for South American countries?
CONMEBOL, the South American football confederation, only has 10 member nations. This makes it somewhat awkward to organise a tournament, which has led them to invite teams from outside the continent in order to make up the numbers.
This has been common practise since 1993, when Mexico and the United States took part in the championship held in Ecuador.
Mexico actually played in every Copa from 1993-2016, even reaching the final on two occasions. While other CONCACAF nations such as Costa Rica and Jamaica have taken part over the years, CONMEBOL have also extended invitations westward. Japan were the first Asian team to take part, participating in the 1999 edition.
They will return this year, where they will be joined by 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar. Those two sides actually met in the final of the Asian Cup earlier this year, a match Qatar would surprisingly win, but that was a coincidence and did not act as some sort of impromptu Copa America qualifiers.
CONMEBOL intended to have 16 teams in this year's championship and invite some of Europe's top nations to take part, but that plan was disrupted by the Euro 2020 qualifiers and the Nations League finals. With the African Cup of Nations also taking part this summer, their options were largely constricted to Asia.
So do they have any chance of putting a run together in Brazil? Possibly.
These are two of the premier sides in Asian football, as evidenced by the aforementioned Asian Cup final. That tournament could well act as a major advantage, with the two squads well tested heading into this event.
That is in great contrast to their South American counterparts, who have not had a competitive fixture since last summer's World Cup. In fact, for teams who failed to qualify for Russia, it has been almost 20 months without a competitive game.
Qatar will be in a group with Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia, while Japan have been drawn with Uruguay, Ecuador and Chile. With eight of the 12 teams set to advance beyond the group stage, it would not be a major surprise to see one of those teams progress.
You must also consider the fact that this tournament is not being taken all seriously by some of the nations involved.
In typical Copa America fashion, where the scheduling of the tournaments could generously be described as erratic, there will be another edition in the summer of 2020.
The championship is set to take place in even years from that point on (at four year intervals), and CONMEBOL saw this as an opportunity to sneak in an extra tournament before that change. Whether they will stick to that schedule in the long-term is doubtful, but 2024 in Ecuador is set to be the next event after next year.
Next year's tournament will strangely be joint-hosted by Argentina and Colombia, two countries that do not share a land boarder and are thousands of kilometres apart. Hardly the most convenient for fans who are hoping to support their team throughout.
This is the first occasion the tournament will be officially hosted by more than one nation, although the tournament was place on a home & away basis decades ago. It will also feature two groups of six, as opposed to the current three group structure.
Australia and Qatar have already accepted invitations to the 2020 edition.
Of course, this will not be the first time the event will be held in successive years. The Copa America was held in Chile in 2015, before a special centenary edition took place in the United States in 2016.
The Copa America generally takes place at the start of a World Cup cycle, with the tournament directly followed by the start of the World Cup qualifiers. However, with another tournament taking place next year, those qualifiers will now not begin until the end of 2020.
This has led many to look at this year's event as a bit of a lesser tournament, as there will be another 12 month gap between competitive matches after the end of the competition.
This is especially true for some of the lesser South American nations who's main focus is merely on World Cup qualification, with no real ambition of winning the Copa America.
Despite all of these oddities, we are genuinely looking forward to the tournament. There is always some cracking football on show, and you can expect a passionate Brazilian crowd to lead to some fireworks on the pitch.
And wouldn't it be some craic if Japan won the lot?
