Some Confederation Cup Related Thoughts

The Brazilians may dislike this, but the football fans worldwide are waiting eagerly for the final on June 30^th. Violent protests were inefficient to suppress the football fans and FIFA from holding the match in Brazil. The FIFA headquarter in Zurich went ahead with its decision of Confederation Cup venue being in Brazil who are also the defending champions. The Secretary General for FIFA Mr Jerome Valcke clearly opposed Brazil sports minister Aldo Rebelo’s revelation that so many other countries has expressed the willingness to be the host of confederation cup 2013 in an open stage.

Divided into 2 groups A and B, the host country Brazil came out to be the first semifinalist by beating Uruguay for a 2-1 rate. The next semifinal is going to be between Spain and Italy and the world is waiting to see whether the bullfighter’s race ahead or Il Canto degli Italiani will be played.

The highlight of this Confederation Cup was Team Tahiti group B member winners of the OFC, getting highly appreciated even though they were beaten up by Spain for a tremendous score of 10-0. This is the record victory in the history of FIFA and the earlier record was in the name of Brazil taking over Saudi for 8 -2 in 1999 semi finals.

Among the semifinalist countries other than Uruguay all the other 3 countries are hit by recession but their football spirit is alive even the midst of this recession. Football being the national sport of Italy, Uruguay, Brazil nothing can quench the zeal for this sport in these countries. Bullfighting may be the national sport of Spaniards but football being the popular sport no one can write them off in this game

Looking at the Olympic history, Italy won the Olympic football Gold in 1936 Berlin and this is the only Olympic gold in Italy’s name for football but they have won gold in World cup in the years 1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006

 

The Spaniards won the World Cup in 2010 and they were winners in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, they were runners up in the 1920 Olympics held in Antwerp, Belgium and in the 2000 Sydney Olympics as well. Brazilians have much advantage in Confederation Cup as they were the winners of 1997, 2007 and 2009 Confederation cup matches. Amazingly they never won any Olympic gold but remained runners up in 1984 in Los Angeles, 1988 in Seoul, 2012 in London. In the 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002 world cup matches they won the gold.

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Uruguay may be out of this Confederation Cup but they were the Olympic gold medal winners in 1924 Paris and 1928 Amsterdam. They even won the World cup in 1930 and 1950. Among the semifinalist teams only Brazil has ever won a Confederation Cup but that may not be the ruling factor this time. More and more Brazilians protesting against this match and violent riots at Rio DI Geniro may or may not affect the psychology of the Brazilian team.

Absence of previous Confederation Cup winners like France, Argentina, Denmark and Mexico has obviously lessened the spirit of this cup but the football fans all over the world are discussing about the matches, forecasting and waiting impatiently for the finals on 30 June 2013 at Estádio do Maracanã , Rio DI Geniro