I know the confed cup is a mickey mouse tournament, hell we've made the final twice even once when we were ranked about 70th in the world, but I think you guys deserve some credit. Staring down the barrel after the Italy game it took some guts to end up where you did and I tip my hat. I'm partially biased because my better half is American (Puerto Rican, born in New York) but regardless it was a superb performance. Brasil are Brasil. Maybe it's time to stop being so critical of the team and manager and just let them get on with what they're being paid to do. There have been a lot of complaints about Bradley, and his son, and it's laughable. Hopefully Onyewu and Donovan have strengthened their cause for decent European contracts too. Anyway I just wanted to say well done. They did their country proud.
Nice... btw I think the Confed Cup is slowly gaining prestige. Every team played its A lineup, including Brazil (minus maybe Diego and a couple of other players). And Brazil was clearly happy to win, just as Spain was unhappy to lose in the semis.
So your wife doesn't get this soccer business, no doubt, since Puerto Ricans love baseball with a passion....I've some Aussie friends here who work inthe pharma industry; they send their kids back home for college where it's more affordable, and fully plan on returning once their work either dries up or they retire. Always wanted to visit, but hate flying and it's a looooong flight from NJ, but I always find the Aussies I run into on vacation a lot ( and I mean a whole lot ) friendlier than than the Brits, who seem to not want to engage in conversation ( even the Quebecois are a whole lot friendlier, despite speaking French they are North Americans after all and i always chat them up when I'm in Florida ( a place I hate by the way; too hot, too many bugs, too damn humid )
Disappointed, but proud. Yes, we coulda-woulda-shoulda held onto the lead, but, it was Brazil we were playing against. It wasn't like they were going to pack up & go home like they were a gold cup Nicaragua squad down 2-0 at the half. I wish our second half matched our first but, hey, it's not like we went down like chumps. Often people get too caught up in the coach, lineup & players, like it's a video game and player X at minute Y automatically produces result Z. Just ain't soccer. I saw the highlights of the S. Africa- Spain game right before our kickoff and said "whatever happens, I want us to fight like that", not to go out on a rail like we did in the first game. Well, we went out on our shield. Heads high, y'all.
Exactly. It's not like we decided to pack it in and try to hold on for 2-0 or 2-1. We did what we could, but... they're ********ing Brazil. Every player out there is fast, fit, strong and technical. Sometimes, no matter how hard you work, the best team wins.
Either you didn't see the Spain/Brazil/Italy lineups, or you have a different definition of "mickey mouse tournament" than I do.
Yeah. Looking back on this Confed Cup, did anyone think we would shut out Spain and be leading Brazil 2-1 in the 70th minute of the final? Did anyone think we'd even get to the semis after losing the first two? Did anyone think we would score seven straight goals from open play without conceding, against the champs of the three toughest regions? Did anyone think we'd go toe-to-toe with the best teams in the world, and look like we belonged?
There was a time not too long ago when the Confederations Cup was seen as a joke, many invited teams declined the offer, and most top teams sent their second or third string lineup. That wasn't the case in this tournament. Three of the elite eight teams in the world showed up, all brought all of their available starters, and the tournament obviously meant something for the players, as you could see from the Brazilian players crying during the award ceremony. This may have been a mickey mouse tournament at one point, but not recently.
FIFA certainly got it right with the evolution of the Confed Cup. Having it the year before the WC, at the same stadiums that will be used at the WC, is a great idea. The RSA football federation now knows what kinks need to be worked out prior to next year. South African fans get their appetites whetted, and the tourism industry can prepare. And of course many top teams get to use the tournament as a measuring stick of where they are. The games just happened to be excellent this time around, especially the semis, final, and third place game. I think the Confed Cup will soon take its place as one of the pre-eminent FIFA tournaments, possibly behind only the WC, Euros, and Copa America.
I think it already has. What was nice, though, was that without the pressure of the World Cup, there was a lot more "fcuk it, let's play" from most of the sides. Today's games especially were as good as anything the last two World Cups produced.
I've been paging through different international footie news sites these last few weeks. A few of them have ignored the Confed Cup almost entirely, aside from the U.S. shocker against Spain and the Brazil/US final. Alot of football fans don't follow it at all. It is obviously less universally followed because of the very limited number of teams that participate, and the fact that there are some weak teams that play (will the Oceania federation continue to have a spot, despite not having Australia anymore??).
I've watched us cream teams in a confed cup and then lose to Uruguay. Anyway I don't want to get into an argument about that, I was just really pleased to see the USA do well. They showed some real character.
No and they had excellent reasons to believe that. Most notably among them was that if the 1958 Brazil team put themselves in that spot, they too would almost certainly be going home. Advancing with three points almost never happens and when it does, it's usually of the 'three draws' variety. Egypt and Brazil did us enormous favors just to make it theoretically possible to get to the Spain game. We got flat out lucky. Then we played a game and a half extremely well, and should have been able to hold on for penalties at least. A mixed emotions tournament for me.
Did the US do this first? We held "major" preview tourney the summer of '93... with England, Germany and Brazil (right?), as a trial run for everybody. I don't remember Italy doing anything like that in '89, but I may not have been paying much attention.
They were having this argument over on Grant Wahl's blog the other day - Copa America vs. Confed Cup. At htis point in time, I think Confederation Cup has surpassed Copa. I don't care about the media attention angle. This was a tourney with the defending WC champ, Euro Champ, Copa champ all with their A teams. WHile it certainly has the tradition, Copa is now sort of glorified B team friendlies that Confed used to be.
I think the Confed Cup changed when FIFA moved it to once every 4 years, rather than once every 2 years. Every 2 years, it's just an inconvenience, and for confederations that have championships every 4 years, it meant sending the same teams twice in a row. Now that it's every 4 years, teams are more inclined to take this tournament seriously since it's less frequent.
You're thinking of the U.S. Cup, a USSF tournament largely aimed at prepping the U.S. side through major friendlies although it did serve the dress rehearsal role to some extent, especially with the match at the SilverDome. FIFA seems to have this tournament figured out finally. It seemed to have a shifting role for a while, but this year struck me as a bit more significant-- and not just because the U.S. made a nice run. Perhaps it was because it was so important for South Africa to give their infrastructure a once-through. Perhaps it was the strong sides. But I think that the Confederations Cup will, in time, come to serve a nice role.