Lucas Paqueta’s second-half strike was enough for defending champions Brazil to hold off determined Chile 1-0 on Friday (Saturday morning IST) and book a Copa America semi-final showdown with Peru.
Second-half substitute Paqueta made an instant impact, finding a gap in Chile’s defense and firing into the back of the net in the 47th minute to put Brazil up 1-0.
Less than two minutes later, however, Brazil were reduced to 10 men when Gabriel Jesus’s reckless high kick caught Eugenio Mena in the face and drew a straight red card.
Chile couldn’t capitalize on the man advantage, no matter they how hard they tried.
Eduardo Vargas thought he’d grabbed the equalizer in the 62nd with a close-range shot, but VAR confirmed the offside call was correct.
In the 69th, Mena’s cross from the left found Ben Brereton, whose looping header had Brazilian goalkeeper Ederson wrong-footed but caromed off the crossbar.
Ederson came up with another big save in the 78th as Chile battled desperately for an equalizer. Carlos Palacios went for broke five minutes into injury time with an attempt from the top of the box that sailed over the crossbar.
With the victory, Brazil set up a rematch of the 2019 final in which they beat Peru 3-1.
Peru punched their semi-final ticket earlier on Friday, beating Paraguay 4-3 on penalities after playing to a 3-3 draw in regular time in Goiania.
The remaining quarter-finals will be played on Saturday (Sunday morning IST), when Argentina take on Ecuador and Uruguay face Colombia.