Bragging Rights

When will footballers learn that mindless bragging and posturing will always come back to haunt them? The latest culprit is Spain's Joan Capdevila who decided to give a bit of pre-match needle to his Villarreal team mate Jozy Altidore ahead of Spain's Confederations Cup semi-final against Altidore's USA side. In blatant defiance of the perceived wisdom that taking the piss out of your opponents serves only to fire them up, rather than demoralise them, Capdevila said “Yesterday he [Altidore] sent me a message and told me that we had to be careful. But his Spanish is not so great, so I think he made a mistake.” I suppose Mr Capdevila had reason to feel confident. His side had managed a record equalling 35 match unbeaten run including 15 wins on the spin. The USA on the other hand had only managed to scrape through their group by virtue of Italy's collapse against Brazil and there wasn't a single pre-match pundit to be found who would back them.

But it seems that Spain, for so long a team that choked on the big stage, have reverted to type following their recent success at Euro 2008. 27 minutes into the game and our friend Jozy, no doubt fired up by the response to his text message, outfought and out-thought Capdevila on the edge of the area before powering a shot home via keeper and post. Fantastic! Just what all the neutrals wanted to see in the run up to the World Cup. Spain can be beaten. A Clint Dempsey goal in the second half wrapped up a famous victory and sent the States into the final, where they will play Brazil; last-gasp winners over a unlucky and much improved South African side last night.

To be honest, were it not for Capdevila's poor man marking, this whole tournament might well have passed by all but unnoticed. Great things seemed on the cards after the early 4-3 thriller between Brazil and Egypt, but that was something of a false dawn as most teams put in the sort of performances that screamed 'I want to be on holiday'. Italy, World Champions let's not forget, were dismal and this Brazil side has to be one of the dullest I've ever seen. Don't even get me started on the likes of New Zealand. But now the tournament has provided one of the biggest shocks of the past few years, it should be on a few more people's radars. If the USA can defend like they did against Spain, they'll have every chance of pulling off another shock in the final as well and they'll be marked out as dark horses for the World Cup finals next year.

Of course, with the USA being great at just about every sport going, it's somewhat galling to be cheering them towards success in the only one we could traditionally expect to beat them in. Even so, I'll be hoping that coach Bob Bradley can guide them to victory against the underwhelming Brazilians, if only to give Altidore the ultimate bragging rights in the Villarreal dressing room next season.

Elsewhere, England's under-21s will take on Sweden tonight in another semi-final clash. One player sadly no longer eligible for the squad is striker Matt Derbyshire, who bagged six goals in his fourteen appearances at this level. Derbyshire made his name at Blackburn Rovers and was a player I rated, so I was somewhat surprised to hear that his home town club had sold him to Greek Super League winners Olympiacos. It transpires that Derbyshire had enjoyed a successful spell there last season and was keen to make the move permanent. He had also taken part in an extraordinary Greek cup final, where he scored two goals, including an injury time equaliser to make it 3-3 and take the game into extra time. The match eventually finished 4-4 and moved into an epic penalty shoot-out which was finally won by Olympiacos after their keeper netted the final kick with the scores at 15-14. I'm not sure that all Greek games are quite so exciting, but his decision to leave perhaps reflects a lack of ambition inherent in so many mid-table Premier League teams, whose only goal is survival and maybe a revenue generating cup-run. Derbyshire will now get to play in front of packed crowds, rather than the half filled Ewood Park and can look forward to Champions League action and the defence of league and cup crowns (not to mention the improvement in weather). I hope he can further his career and maybe eventually challenge for an England squad place.