Overconfident Americans throw away the Confederations Cup

The US were playing an effective and very ugly 6-2-2 / 5-3-2 in the first half. It was this same style that saw them beat Spain in the semi. They relied on the aerial strength of their defense and inch perfect tackling. I heard people compare them to Greece in 2004, it is not quite true, but the idea was the same. Any errors in their tackling would led to cards, which we saw in their group matches. For offense they rely on set pieces and the counter attack. Against Spain their counter attack looked more like a dump and chase, in the first half of the final they had a more organised counter attack going and it paid dividends. The US had 2 goals in the first half and their defense held the Brasilians to the outside. The US style gifted possession to the Brasilians, and though they were passing much better than the Spanish they didn't cause too many problems for the US.

Which leads me to the title of the post, I don't know why they did it and I hope to hear some explanation from Bob Bradley. They came out for the second half and seemed to have switched from their hybrid 6-2-2/5-3-2 to a 3-3-2-2. This gave the Brasilians a lot more space which they exploited. The US counter attack that had been organised in the first half became the more desperate dump and chase that they resorted to against Spain. The only advantage that this system seemed to afford the Americans was more of the ball if they managed to hold it up in the Brasilian half.

The only thing I can think of is that Bradley thought that switching formations would allow the US to have more of the ball and thus limit Brasil's chances. Implicit with this way of thinking is that the US was good enough to play against Brasil. This is nothing other than overconfidence in the fact that they were up 2-0, or perhaps they believed all of the hype that they had no doubt heard about themselves from the excited US media. Whatever the reason it was a stupid decision. The US looked lost for the entirety of the second half. Compounding the problem was that it only took Brasil one minute to get a goal in the second half. Brasil kept on coming and got a second through Kaka only the ref didn't notice that the ball had crossed the line (and didn't count it). A quick aside here is that on disputed goals the ref should blow their whistle the fourth official watches the replay on a TV and provides the correct decision. As you are no doubt aware Brasil kept coming and won the match 3-2. The US offered no resistance in the second half.

I believe that if the US had stuck with their ugly football through the 6-2-2, they may have won in regulation or forced extra time. The players on the US are not as good as the players on Brasil, but with the formation they started the game with they could have won. Why they changed their formation confounds me. The whole purpose of starting with a formation like the one the US played was to hold out for a draw or possibly grab a goal on the counter attack. So to be up 2-0 would have exceeded their hopes. I am not sure what they discussed at the half, but as far as I can tell they got overconfident and thought they could play the Brasilians. They couldn't and they lost.

In any tournament there is always a lot of talk about teams getting overconfident and looking past opponents. Surprisingly in the final the team that fell guilty to overconfidence was the under dog. They changed their formation and in the process threw away the title, that has got to sting.

Confederations Cup Pool

Well looking at the poll results it seems that no agreed with my pick of New Zealand to advance along with Spain and most people went with Iraq. The Iraq - New Zealand match will be the key match in the group. Which brings me to the title of this post Confederations Cup Pool, it is an opportunity to battle wits and see who can predict the outcome of the matches.

Not too long ago I was introduced to SuperBru by a friend. SuperBru is a South African pool manager that runs pools for Super XIV Rugby, The Indian Premier League (Cricket), F1, and football, namely the Confederations Cup. I have started a pool there and you invited to join. Here is the information:

Website: http://www.superbru.com/confedcup
Pool code: votepale
Pool name: PompeyCanuck′s Pool

If you don't know much about the Confederations Cup you can read my preview, that way you should know what I know or at least what I think.

Unfortunately there are no prizes other than to say "I kicked Pompey's ass" or "at least I am as smart as I pretend to be" so I hope that I will see you there,

Cheers & Good Luck

Confederations Cup Preview

The Confederations Cup gets underway in 3 weeks and there are few interesting things about this tournament. Obviously the looming match up of Italy and Brazil in the group being one of the matches to watch. The story that I am most interested in however is who will advance along with Spain from Group A, in fact I have even added a poll to see what you think.

The groups in this tournament are quite lopsided in Group A we have the European Champions Spain, the Asian Champions Iraq, the Oceanic Champions New Zealand (Australia is now considered an Asian Country if you were wondering what happened to them) and the Hosts South Africa. In Group B we find the World Champions Italy, the North American & Caribbean Champions USA, the South American Champions Brazil, and the African Champions Egypt.

I have no doubt that Spain will be top of Group A. The question is which team will join them? It could really be any of the three. South Africa has been very poor of late, if you haven't been following, they lost out of the World Cup Qualifying (which doubled as African Cup of Nations Qualifying which is why they were participating) and thus will miss the African Cup of Nations in Angola. This is a huge blow as it means that the Confederation Cup are their only competitive matches until the World Cup. In a similar position is New Zealand they have already won the Oceania World Cup qualifying and await a playoff opponent from Asia in October. It has been a long time since New Zealand has played some strong opponents and making it out of this group will give them a lot of confidence going into their playoff match up. Iraq were unlucky to not advance to the final round of the World Cup qualifying. They will be focused on this tournament as a chance to brighten spirits back home, much the same way that their victory in Asia did.

I have been thinking about this for some time, and I keep switching between Iraq and New Zealand as the team to advance with Spain, conveniently for us football fans they meet in the final group game that is likely to decide who progresses to the next stage. But seeing as how I should pick someone I will stick with my gut and go with New Zealand.

Group B is also a bit difficult to figure out as Brazil and Egypt haven't been too consistent of late. To illustrate this point Brazil drew 0-0 with Bolivia in World Cup Qualifying. What is that you say it was the Altitude? Nope it must have been the attitude as the match was in Brazil! Egypt seems to have two different teams, the team that dominates in the African Cup of Nations and the team that doesn't get results anywhere else. Sadly for fans of the Pharaohs this will be another disappointing tournament as I think that Egypt will be the whipping boy of Group B and return to Cairo with 0 points. The way I see it unfolding for the rest of the teams is a draw between Italy and the US, Brazil beating the Americans, and Brazil and Italy battling to a draw. This means that Italy and Brazil advance to the semis.

In the Semis I have Spain playing Italy in another great match up, I see the Spaniards advancing to the final. The other semi pits New Zealand against Brazil, this is the end of the road for New Zealand (if New Zealand pull off a shock here it would likely be the end of the road for Dunga) setting up a great Spain - Brazil final.

In the final I think that Spain will win and cement themselves as the favourites to win next summer at the World Cup.