A Confederacy of Dungas

The Confederations Cup drew to a close last night, with a fittingly exciting final between Brazil and the USA. Ever the fan of the underdog, I was rooting for the Americans, but sadly, their fine run of form deserted them in the second half, resulting in a 3-2 defeat, despite having led 2-0 at the break. I have to admit that I was fairly sceptical about this tournament, which looked like a glorified World Cup warm-up, but after suffering a few grim group games early on, things started to pick up, climaxing last night with Lucio's dramatic and emotional late headed winner.

So, in lieu of having anything else of interest to talk about in the close season, here's my Confederations Cup, team-by-team review.

USA

Team of the tournament for me. They were dismal in their first two matches, but came alive against Egypt and put on one of the greatest defensive displays I've seen in recent years against Spain. Tim Howard capped off an outstanding season for Everton with some superb performances and would probably have been the player of the tournament, if only they could have held on in the final. There still seems to be a lot of disenchantment from the fans with regards coach Bob Bradley, but you'd have to back him to hold on to his position after their great run, and it seems only fair to me that he be given the chance to take them to the World Cup.
In my last post, I mentioned the footballing faux-pas of bragging to your opponents. It was a little disappointing to see the USA subs running onto the pitch and congratulating their team mates at half time, just because they were 2-0 up. There's nothing wrong with doing this, but surely it would have been better to do so in the dressing room, rather than in front of the Brazilian players. I'm sure any Brazilian who saw it will have felt even more satisfied when they scored the winning goal.
Anyway, that complaint aside, they were great and I'll be interested to see what they can do when they return next year.

Brazil

One of the most underwhelming Brazilian sides I've ever seen, but they still won. They started with defensive concerns after conceding three against Egypt, but soon sorted that out, only to start having goal scoring issues, most noticeably in their somewhat fortuitous semi-final win against the hosts. There was roughly 45 minutes of Brazilian flair on show during the entire competition, and it all came in the second half of the final. Coach Dunga has got them functioning well from set-pieces, but seemingly at the expense of their trademark flair, which the fans will only tolerate as longas he is winning. Thankfull, they have a strong winning mentality and despite their shortcomings, they will be one of the most feared teams in SA 2010. Luis Fabiano finished as top scorer and looked very composed in front of goal. He'll be one of the danger men next year and I'd expect a bit more from the bigger names like Robinho and Kaka.

South Africa

There was so much negativity from the South African public prior to the tournament, almost as if they were making their excuses for their poor team early. It was all unfounded though as Bafana Bafana put on a great show, making the semi finals with some ease and holding Brazil to a goalless draw for 88 minutes of their semi-final. Steven Pienaar was instrumental and he'll have a lot of expectation on his shoulders when the hosts kick-off their campaign next year.
One of the other stars of the cup was the vuvuzela. This is the horn favoured by the locals and blown in a noisy, inharmonious drone throughout every game. Some online curmudgeons have put up a petition to get them banned from the World Cup, presumably because the noise disturbs their TV viewing experience. Now, I can't say that I'm a fan of these horns, but to try to ban them is shocking. I would imagine that the atmosphere at these games is fantastic and for some fool in their cosy apartment to try and ruin that for all those who turn up and pay their cash to watch the match in the stadium is symptomatic of the way that the live experience is being sanitized for the TV watching masses. Why have the contest in South Africa if their fans can't celebrate the game in their own way? Crazy. So if you see one of these anti Vuvuzela petitions, don't sign it.

Spain

They looked comfortable, if unspectacular in their group games, but were undone by a lack of clinical finishing, which was hinted at in their game against Iraq, before coming to a head against the USA. They equalled the record for consecutive games without a defeat, only to lose the game that would have given them the record outright. The rest of the world will have breathed a great sigh of relief when they finally lost and all of a sudden, Del Bosque's side look vulnerable. They've got a year to iron out the issues that arose in their five games and one suspects that they'll still be a big threat for the world Cup title. Or perhaps they've reverted to form and we can expect to see them bow out at the quarter or semi-final stage again.

Egypt

Probably the best team not to get through the group stages, Egypt, who face something of an uphill battle to qualify for next year’s competition, put in two outstanding efforts in their opening games, losing to a controversial last minute penalty to Brazil before stunning Italy 1-0. Their exertions clearly affected them in their final game where they were overwhelmed by the USA and unluckily bowed out. There were a few players in their squad who looked like they would be able to make an impression on the world stage, so I hope to see them make it through their qualifiers.

Iraq

The only team in the contest who had no hope of returning next year, Iraq failed to recapture the form that gave them the Asian crown. They were quite compact, conceding just the one goal, but lacked any bite up front and couldn't find a way past the hosts or New Zealand. It could well be that this team has now passed its peak.

Italy

The world champions were awful from start to finish. Having seen off 10 man USA in their opener, they then lost to Egypt and were thumped by Brazil to such an extent that the USA were able to get a six-goal swing in their favour in order to go through, and dump the Italians out, in dramatic circumstances. They've got massive improvements to make if they have designs on recapturing their title and their fans will be hoping that the players are getting their bad form out of the way a year early.

New Zealand

The underdogs of the competition and with good reason. After a 5-0 hammering in their opener, the team looked broken and failed to grab a goal in either of their other games. They will play Saudi Arabia or Bahrain for the chance to return to South Africa, but on this showing, they would be doing nothing more than making up the numbers.

So there we go. A nice way to fill the gap between the end of last season and the start of the pre-season friendlies. Roll-on the World Cup.