I haven't been able to watch too much of the Confederations Cup since the second round of Group matches, but I was really amazed when I found out that the United States was able to make it out of the Group after a 3-0 win against Egypt (especially since Egypt came back against Brazil to tie it 3-3 until Kaka was able to get one last opportunity in the final minutes). The United States was able to get the exact situation they needed in order to progress--a 3 goal win for both Brazil and the United States. As I am writing this, I am watching the re-airing of the USA-Spain semifinal on ESPNU. Now, of course, I thought Spain was going to win and if I was betting, I would have bet on a Spain win for sure. As many of you are aware, the United States beat Spain (the best team in the world according to FIFA's rankings) 2-0. Not only did they win a spot in the final and force Spain to play for third place, the Americans also ended Spain's unbeaten streak in their last 35 matches (15 wins, 0 losses, 20 ties). Spain's last loss before this was against Sweden in a Euro 2008 Qualifier, a 2-0 loss in July 2007. Their last tie was against Italy in the Euro 2008 knockout round which forced them to rely on penalty kicks to progress and eventually win the Euro 2008 title, which qualified them to the 2009 Confederations Cup.
Here's a video from youtube with the reactions and opinions of players currently in the US Development Academy regarding the US National Team at the Confederations Cup. For more coverage from US Soccer regarding the Confederations Cup, check out the US Soccer channel on youtube.
Now, I don't want to get into too much into the USA-Spain match or any of the other matches that didn't cover since I missed so many of them. Instead, I'm going to use this post to quickly give my overview and prediction of tomorrow's third place playoff between host nation South Africa and European champions Spain as well as the USA-Brazil match for the title. In you are in the United States, both matches are being broadcasted live on ESPN (title match between the United States and Brazil at 2:30 pm) and ESPN2 (third place playoff between Spain and South Africa at 9 am).
Third place match: hosts South Africa vs Euro 2008 champions Spain: I don't think the Euro 2008 champions really thought they were going to end up settling for the third place playoff. They were in a fairly weak group with the hosts South Africa, Asian champion Iraq, and Oceanian champion New Zealand, so it was not really difficult for Spain to get out of this group. They already beat South Africa once in the Group Stage 2-0 but the hosts never really caused any upsets in the tournament and their only goals scored were the two against New Zealand while their match against Iraq was a scoreless draw. With a 1-1-1 record in the group stage, they managed to crawl out Group A and into a semifinal match against Brazil which I saw part of and they played fairly well but could not find the back of the net and it ended with a 1-0 loss against the team ranked 5th in FIFA's rankings. This was all thanks to the South African defense as Spain's only goal was scored in the 88th minute. Check out the official match report for more on this match. The way South Africa has played throughout the competition, I would say that Spain will win it but the match will be tight. Like the match against a Brazil, who from what I saw did not give it their usual full force against the hosts, I think Spain will score a late goal or else it will go into overtime. Both teams will play well but I think Spain will dominate on possession. I'll probably be live blogging this match for as much of it as I can.
Title match (USA vs Brazil): I would never have believed it if you told me that the United States would have beaten Spain to qualify themselves for this match tomorrow. If you told me that they were going to beat Italy in their first group match, I would not have been as shocked as I always thought Italy was an overrated team. I didn't watch the match against Egypt and I didn't find out until the day after that the United States was progressing to the knockout round. The stars and planets were definitely aligned exactly as the United States wanted as they snuck past Italy and Egypt in the Group B standings with the exact number of goals they needed (3 against Egypt and a 3 goal win for Brazil against Italy). A mere tie in the Brazil-Italy match would have eliminated the "stars and stripes" no matter how they did against Egypt so they owe quite a bit to Brazil for their qualification to the semifinals although the Americans did play amazingly well against the African champs. Even if they do lose to Brazil, the Confederations Cup has given the Americans quite a bit of confidence as they continue through World Cup 2010 qualifying and as they make their return trip to South Africa for the World Cup next summer if they qualify. In the CONCACAF Zone, the United States is currently in 2nd place with 10 points (3-1-1) and 2 points behind Costa Rica who is in 1st place. The top four teams qualify for the World Cup directly. The fourth place team has to play the fifth place team from South America in a two legged home and away play off in order to earn a spot. More on this later. Now back to the Brazil-USA match. The United States already lost to Brazil in the group stage 3-0 so the United States will have a very tough match tomorrow but recent matches for the United States have ended with good results so tomorrow's match may be tighter than the match in the Group stage. The United States goes in to this match with quite a bit of confidence but Brazil will definitely come out to win this match. Even though the Confederations Cup is not a very important competition and is not near as important as the World Cup, Brazil will definitely want to win it and they are going to want to defend their 2005 Confederations Cup title so I expect Kaka to be in the starting line up. However, with the United States playing better than I have seen them play in a while, anything can happen.
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