A long, long, long game finally ended on penalties with Spain securing their place in the final against Brazil. Italy will play for the third place against Uruguay on Sunday.
Brazil claimed a spot in the final of the Confederations Cup 2013 with a victory from Uruguay. The team will face either Spain or Italy in Sunday's final.
Yesterday Spain took the much deserved place as the winner of group B thanks to a neat victory over Nigeria. La Roja will face Italy in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup on Thursday.
Thanks to Jordi Alba's neat finishing on the third minute Spain got a very good start to the game. After that it was a bit more quiet for a while. Nigeria had some pretty good chances, but the finishing was poor, despite Spain's defense not being great at all. In the very end of the first half Cesc Fabregas shot off the post and Spain's second close was really close. With goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama's quick reflexes and a little bit of good fortune Nigeria, however, managed to end the first half only one goal behind.
Despite having both teams already secured their spots on the semifinals we still saw quite a fight for the victory in yesterday's game. Brazil, especially on the first half, controlled the game. Italy, however, had their moments as well. Dante scored the first goal on the last minute of the first half. |
| Suarez' guide to football |
The first half proved to be more difficult than thought. Fernando Torres did score Spain's first goal on the 5th minute, but after that Tahiti really put up a fight and it worked... for half an hour. Then Spain's scoring reaaally began. But before that I think that especially the defense and goalkeeper Roche of Tahiti were excellent. But then they got tired or I don't know what happened and by the time the first 45 minutes were over Spain was leading 4-0.
Of all the games in the Confederations Cup 2013 so far Italy vs Japan was definitely the most entertaining. The whole match was full of drama. Penalties, offsides and many many goals. Big feelings, perseverance and a very disappointed loser. This game had it all.
The first half showed a Brazil that played in a very happy, energetic way. Brazil scored the first goal of the evening on the 4th minute, but it was quickly ruled an offside. 5 minutes later Neymar scored an actual goal. And oh how the home crowd cheered!
After half an hour David Luiz bumped his head into teammate Thiago Silva's head and got a nosebleed. That big injury seemed to really take it's toll on the defender and the rest of the first half Luiz spent mostly changing his shirt or the tissues in his nose. Thankfully he survived from the drastic injury with the help of 5 medics and support from fellow Premier League player Javier Chicharito.
Tahiti has one professional football player, the rest of the team are teachers, couriers etc by profession. So it's fair to say that the team consists of amateurs. Nigeria may not be the very best football team in the world, but it's a team full of pros. Needless to say Tahiti really had no chance to begin with.
On the 20th minute after several close calls Pedro scored Spain's first goal. 15 minutes later Roberto Soldado scored a second goal for La Rojas. Uruguay was completely lost and of course it is difficult to score when you never touch the ball, but even when they did they weren't able to do anything with it. And what did they do to cover up the lack of talent in the team? Dived, whined and tackled the Spaniards. Especially Maxi Pereira and Diego Perez were incredibly violent, though apparently not violent enough since referee Yuichi Nishimura didn't bother to book either one.
Group A's second game at the legendary Maracana-stadium in Rio de Janeiro showed two teams both very eager to win the match. Often in Confederations Cup the player's lack of enthusiasm has been a problem, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case this year.
Brazil didn't waste any time scoring the first goal of their home tournament - FC Barcelona's newest addition Neymar scored the first goal of Confederations Cup after only three minutes. And what a goal that was! If some of you missed it here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AdeVmYfehw
I am very VERY happy to say that Jose Mourinho is no longer the coach of Real Madrid. During his spell at Santiago Bernabeu he has managed to do the impossible; make Real Madrid even more obnoxious, make me feel sorry for Pepe and make me realize that maybe Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't have the biggest ego in football. That was quite a challenge, but Mr Mourinho you made it, congrats!
Confederations cup starts tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited. Summer and football are a match made in heaven and having 2 weeks of quality football makes me very happy. So for those of who aren't familiar with Confederations Cup; it's a kind of pre-tournament of World Cup. 8 countries, one from each continent + the host nation and world cup winners qualify for the tournament. So this year Spain, Italy, Uruguay, Tahiti, Japan, Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria are fighting to win it.
So it is now official. The much hyped brazilian wonderkid Neymar is a player of FC Barcelona with a bargain price of 57 million euros. Rumors of the player's transfer to Camp Nou have been going on for a long time and for most of that time I hoped it wasn't true. Why would Barca want another big ego to their team I thought? Wasn't the incident with Zlatan Ibrahimovic enough to prove that certain type of players, regardless of their talent just simply aren't capable of adapting to the team on or off the field.