Confederations Cup 2009 (Soccer)

[TummieGaruda]

England is the Chicago Cubs of Soccer, great in the regular season but choke in the playoffs (World Cup).

I should also mention I had no clue whatsoever this tournament was going on till about 2 hours ago, when they mentioned the upset of Spain.

Actually they mentioned it here in the LA area a few days ago because of the unusual circumstances that allowed the US to get into this matchup. On Sunday, the US had to win by 3 goals, and Italy had to lose by 3 in order for them to advance if I remember correctly, and like magic, that actually happened as the US beat Egypt 3-0 and Italy lost 0-3 to Brazil. A lot of people, including myself, expected Spain to just walk all over the US but wow is all I have to say...

[Tyche]

seriously, usa beating spain with 2-0 after their record-breaking 16 win-streak is pretty nuts

edit: because honestly, you're not that good at soccer. and Id like to see you go up against austraila in rugby without all the protection. :3

Don't be fooled by the protection, the US has athletes. Like, 6'1" 240 that run 4.6 40's

[Meph]

Id still wager a decent bet against them going up against rugby-players

[Flarega]

Yeah and I'd like to see australia go up against the US in American football.

[Wintermute]

England is the Chicago Cubs of Soccer, great in the regular season but choke in the playoffs (World Cup).

I should also mention I had no clue whatsoever this tournament was going on till about 2 hours ago, when they mentioned the upset of Spain.

England is a fantastic semi/quarter-finals team. They'll get that far but never further. It's almost a guarantee.

Dependence on injury-prone players in the last couple of years hasn't helped them any.

That said glad Spain lost, as one of their neighbours I can ploudly taunt them for loosing to the US of all people.

YouTube - The Footie Song (Adam and Joe)

[Akiyama]

Actually, you had put the confederate cup...and unless the north was playing the south in a soccer fight for slavery rights, then...

Ahh, I did? Then yeah, my bad. I thought I heard someone on ESPN call it the Confederate Cup or whatever. Whoops.

[Tyche]

You placate too much to the foreign misconception that american football isn't a physically demanding sport and is just a bastardized version of rugby. In reality, it's much more of a collision sport, hence the pads. You should watch more american football, because in reality, they are nothing alike. As I said, the NFL has some of the biggest and fastest athletes in the world, and I would think they would translate very well to rugby, although they wouldn't simply go out and beat down premier rugby talent their first time out. As I said, the sports are very different.

In rugby, this is an obstruction and illegal. In the NFL, this is a block, and a broken jaw. By a player playing a finesse position (albeit, not a finesse player).

YouTube - Ward blasts Rivers

[Rammses]

Very impressive performance, but USA always tend to be dangerous in internationals despite the players being garbage in their club teams in Europe.

The World Cup will be interesting. Argentina, Italy, Spain and France have all been failing recently and will have a hard time building up a winning mentality; their managers are questionable at best. Portugal won't even qualify. Holland just can't grind a result and have a relatively weak squad. England, maybe, but they will probably choke on their own hype, and Capello's cup record is weak. Brazil are the big favourites, Germany are my outside bet.

[Meph]

No I dont advocate that american football isnt a demanding sport, I just dont buy into the whole business which leads to steroid-abuse.
Granted the english/australian leagues are probably inflicted with that aswell, I just dont see it as such a regularity as its not as commercial, since thats what sports is about.

[Tyche]

What are you talking about? The NFL =/= Baseball. Anyone in this thread can name about 20 players guilty of steroid abuse in baseball. I'd be shocked if anyone can name 2 in the NFL. The most famous steroid user in the NFL is a defensive end from the west coast that most casual fans have never heard of. I won't say noone uses in the NFL, but there are rarely suspensions because of positive tests.

Onto the topic:
From a soccer noob:
How does the World Cup qulifying work? Since the US have made it to the confederations cup finals, do they auto-qualify, or do they have to win the cup? Maybe we're already qualified? Can someone shine some light on this for me?

[Rivero]

World Cup has an entirely different system. You play a bunch of matches against a few random countries and whoever wins those qualifiers gets sent into 4 different brackets and then you play it out like a normal tournament. I think every country gets a shot at the World Cup, or at least ones with actual major football leagues.

Confederations Cup is just a collection of teams who achieved certain wins in regional tournaments. (European Cup/African Cup/etc) For example, if I remember correctly Spain won the 2008 UEFA cup so they got a place. I also should include the winner of the previous World Cup, which was Italy.

[Byrd]

How does the World Cup qualifying work?

Every country in the world has a shot to qualify for the world cup, which effectively makes it a 2 year long, 200 team tournament. However, only the final 32 play in the actual World Cup tournament in South Africa. The Confederations cup really doesn't have anything to do with World Cup qualifying. Full qualification procedures can be found here.

The only automatic berths are the host country and the defending champ, everyone else has to play their way in. This is basically by region, although technically by confederation. There are 6 confederations -- each one basically consists of teams from Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Depending on previous results in World Cup play and maybe some other factors I am not aware of, each confederation is awarded a certain number of berths. Hypothetically, Africa might get 5, Asia might get 4.5, North America gets 3.5, etc. The .5 means the 4th place team from NA might play the 5th place team from Asia for a berth, etc.

There are multiple rounds of qualifying within each region, so the process starts in, I believe, 2008 and continues through the end of 2009. Right now, the current table (standings) for CONCACAF (North American soccer confederation, no idea what it stands for) can be found here.

Right now, the USA is in strong position to return to the world cup, in second place in CONCACAF. The top three teams get automatic berths in World Cup 2010, and the fourth place team will play the 5th place team from South America for a berth.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Some of my minutiae might be wrong.

[510Meeze]

No I dont advocate that american football isnt a demanding sport, I just dont buy into the whole business which leads to steroid-abuse.
Granted the english/australian leagues are probably inflicted with that aswell, I just dont see it as such a regularity as its not as commercial, since thats what sports is about.

You're thinking baseball guy.

American football has one of the strictest abuse policies, I stopped watching baseball because the steroids became a joke.

[Jefe]

I'm thinking Mexico is going to play the 5th place from South America. They've been playing like crap. Hell, I don't even know most of the players. Compared to previous incarnations of the national team, they lack passion, and it seems like they don't even want to play eh. Just four years ago it was a considered a fucking honour to be in the team and wouldn't back down from the top teams in the world. This team doesn't have a leader and no game at all. We'll see what happens...

[Retrieving/C.D/Searain]

Very impressive performance, but USA always tend to be dangerous in internationals despite the players being garbage in their club teams in Europe.

The World Cup will be interesting. Argentina, Italy, Spain and France have all been failing recently and will have a hard time building up a winning mentality;

lol, no one aside from the few football-3rd world countries that somehow get to participate cause FIFA wants to "expand" their market so bad gives a fuck about this Confederations Cup (heck, generally italian players and people don't give 2 shits about European Cup either).

It's nothing more than an exhibition to try out new players and tactics (point in case being the fact that Italy let their younger talents such as Giovinco, Acquafresca, Marchisio, Balotelli and the likes play the U-21 Euro Championships instead...and we didn't even bother with calling Amauri or Del Piero)/an opportunity for the technical sponsors to show new, pointless kits (wtf @ the italian brown shorts and socks, what's wrong with Puma designers these days...) and more of a nuisance than anything for players who have been playing at a ridicolously stressful (both physically and mentally) pace since August 2k8, thus those who think that getting to the final of this laughable tourny is some sort of huge accomplishment are sorely mistaken.

It'd be like comparing McDonald's Championship or the Olympics basketball tournament with NBA Playoffs, really.

The world cup is where it's at.

The only automatic berths are the host country and the defending champ,

Italy had to qualify as well (in fact they haven't mathematically qualified yet even though they're leading their group) and so did Brazil 4 years ago. You're prolly thinking of recent years UEFA Champion's League or America's Cup...or something.

[510Meeze]

lol, no one aside from the few football-3rd world countries that somehow get to participate cause FIFA wants to "expand" their market so bad gives a fuck about this Confederations Cup (heck, generally italian players and people don't give 2 shits about European Cup either).

It's nothing more than an exhibition to try out new players and tactics (point in case being the fact that Italy let their younger talents such as Giovinco, Acquafresca, Marchisio, Balotelli and the likes play the U-21 Euro Championships instead...and we didn't even bother with calling Amauri or Del Piero)/an opportunity for the technical sponsors to show new, pointless kits (wtf @ the italian brown shorts and socks, what's wrong with Puma designers these days...) and more of a nuisance than anything for players who have been playing at a ridicolously stressful (both physically and mentally) pace since August 2k8, thus those who think that getting to the final of this laughable tourny is some sort of huge accomplishment are sorely mistaken.

It'd be like comparing McDonald's Championship or the Olympics basketball tournament with NBA Playoffs, really.

The world cup is where it's at.

I agree, but at the same time I don't think the Spanish were showing up to this game to lose. They put out their #1 squad in a Semifinal. Anyone who plays sports knows that a trophy is a trophy is a trophy once you're on the pitch. You can say the cup is worthless, but the win was very much real.

[Erza]

it's called football dickhead

[SDSD]

it's called football dickhead

not in america you pompous fuck.

On Topic: Hopefully we don't play Brazil the same way we did in the group stages. That was one of the most embarrassing games I can remember USMNT playing in a long, long time.

[510Meeze]

it's called football dickhead

The title's been changed dickhead.

[Erza]

Oh lawd let's not take into consideration the other 194 countries in the world