2013 Confederations Cup Scores

Slightly late, but feel free to use

Group A Matches
Brazil 3-2 Japan
Mexico 1-0 Italy
Mexico 3-1 Brazil
Japan 0-1 Italy
Brazil 0-1 Italy
Japan 0-1 Mexico

Group B Matches
Spain 0-2 Uruguay
Tahiti 0-2 Nigeria
Tahiti 1-4 Spain
Uruguay 1-1 Nigeria
Spain 3-0 Nigeria
Uruguay 4-0 Tahiti

Group A Standings

Team P W D L For Ag +/- Pts
1 Mexico 3 3 0 0 5 1 +4 9
2 Italy 3 2 0 1 2 1 +1 6
3 Brazil 3 1 0 2 4 6 -2 3
4 Japan 3 0 0 3 2 5 -3 0



Group B Standings

Team P W D L For Ag +/- Pts
1 Uruguay 3 2 1 0 7 1 +6 7
2 Spain 3 2 0 1 7 3 +4 6
3 Nigeria 3 1 1 1 3 4 -1 4
4 Tahiti 3 0 0 3 1 10 -9 0


Knockout Stage
Semi-finals
Mexico 2-1 Spain
Uruguay 0-2 Italy

Third Place
Spain 0-2 Uruguay

Final
Mexico 2-1 Italy

Those are erratic...

I know eh, Scotland would of beat all those teams...

I think its not that far from the truth. I think Mexico, Uruguay, Italy and Spain will decide who will win this thing. Tahiti, Nigeria and Japan stand no change to proceed to the semi finals. Brazil is hardly a shadow of its former self, but maybe home advantage might help them a bit.

I personally think the final will be Italy - Spain. I have very little information on the quality of Mexico, since most of their players play in the Mexican league so I'm not sure how good they really are.

I agree.

Mexico's national team looks awful. They're all Mexico-based, the Mexican league doesn't have a reputation of being a good one and most of their players only have a handful of caps.

Saying that, their Olympic team did beat Brazil in the final last year..

Spain are probably odds-on to win the Confederations Cup. If they don't win it I expect that sadly it'll be Suarez's Uruguay that does.

SoySauce, Scotland can't even beat Wales. They also have one of the worst managers in Britain. He's spent more time on English sofas chatting rubbish on telly as a pundit than he has managing teams.

I agree.

Mexico's national team looks awful. They're all Mexico-based, the Mexican league doesn't have a reputation of being a good one and most of their players only have a handful of caps.

Saying that, their Olympic team did beat Brazil in the final last year..

Spain are probably odds-on to win the Confederations Cup. If they don't win it I expect that sadly it'll be Suarez's Uruguay that does.

SoySauce, Scotland can't even beat Wales. They also have one of the worst managers in Britain. He's spent more time on English sofas chatting rubbish on telly as a pundit than he has managing teams.

If only we could get Alex Ferguson, failing that Salmond...

Scottish football is improving though, screw your English Manchester united and Chelsea, we've got Ross county and East fife

I agree.

Mexico's national team looks awful. They're all Mexico-based, the Mexican league doesn't have a reputation of being a good one and most of their players only have a handful of caps.

Saying that, their Olympic team did beat Brazil in the final last year..

Spain are probably odds-on to win the Confederations Cup. If they don't win it I expect that sadly it'll be Suarez's Uruguay that does.

SoySauce, Scotland can't even beat Wales. They also have one of the worst managers in Britain. He's spent more time on English sofas chatting rubbish on telly as a pundit than he has managing teams.

If only we could get Alex Ferguson, failing that Salmond...

Scottish football is improving though, screw your English Manchester united and Chelsea, we've got Ross county and East fife

Even though I'm against the idea, Scottish football would improve a lot if its teams played in the English leagues instead. Welsh teams recognise this, look at Swansea and now Cardiff.

The SPL has also got even worse because Rangers got chucked out. All that has done is to allow Celtic to romp to the title for how many years until Rangers return to the SPL and rebuild themselves?

Also, Scotland seems to have a policy of stealing mediocre English players that play in the Championship. Somehow they miraculously find that the English players they want have a Scottish grandparent which makes them eligible. That's not the way forward.
Heck, a footballer from my town (which is no way near Scotland, we're actually near Wales) has been capped by Scotland even though he's English.

I agree.

Mexico's national team looks awful. They're all Mexico-based, the Mexican league doesn't have a reputation of being a good one and most of their players only have a handful of caps.

Saying that, their Olympic team did beat Brazil in the final last year..

Spain are probably odds-on to win the Confederations Cup. If they don't win it I expect that sadly it'll be Suarez's Uruguay that does.

SoySauce, Scotland can't even beat Wales. They also have one of the worst managers in Britain. He's spent more time on English sofas chatting rubbish on telly as a pundit than he has managing teams.

If only we could get Alex Ferguson, failing that Salmond...

Scottish football is improving though, screw your English Manchester united and Chelsea, we've got Ross county and East fife

Even though I'm against the idea, Scottish football would improve a lot if its teams played in the English leagues instead. Welsh teams recognise this, look at Swansea and now Cardiff.

The SPL has also got even worse because Rangers got chucked out. All that has done is to allow Celtic to romp to the title for how many years until Rangers return to the SPL and rebuild themselves?

Also, Scotland seems to have a policy of stealing mediocre English players that play in the Championship. Somehow they miraculously find that the English players they want have a Scottish grandparent which makes them eligible. That's not the way forward.
Heck, a footballer from my town (which is no way near Scotland, we're actually near Wales) has been capped by Scotland even though he's English.

It's promoting competition with rangers out of the picture, instead of a piss up between Celtic and Rangers every year teams like Inverness and Motherwell having a chance.

It's not really promoting competition when its just allowing Celtic to win the league without any real challenger.

Although I guess it does give other teams a chance of getting into Europe.

Yeah, and Europe's where the money is,

Yeah, and Europe's where the money is,

Not sure if Motherwell, or Inverness/St Johnstone/Ross County would even make it to the group stage of the Europa League to be honest.

And Hibs!

Says 25% of the Hibs fanbase...

Mexico may not be the favorites - and I was actually this close to changing that result, just because we have an active Italy - but I don't see a reason why they couldn't surprise us. The results seemed plausible enough to me, so I went with that. It's not like Tahiti won.

In fact, looking at Mexico's latest achievements and records, it's perfectly possible for them to be the 'zebra' - that's how Brazilians call the underdog, when it actually wins - of the Confederations Cup.

As a side-note, the fact that most of Mexico's team play in Mexico means next to nothing in regards to quality. Brazil's top player right now plays in Brazil - and, despite rumors, i doubt he's going anywhere anytime soon.

There are just too many variables to point at any one team and say they're favorites at this point. In Brazil, we have a saying. "Futebol é uma caixinha de surpresas", or "Football is a little box of surprises".

Well, even if Mexico is mostly domestically based for now their youth players are good. I just don't see them winning the thing. I don't see a point in changing it, I'm just very surprised by both Uruguay and Mexico doing so well while Spain are so utterly mediocre (then again, maybe the Confed Cup was well refereed?).

Also, I don't think Neymar will be on our side of the pond after this summer. Barcelona and Real Madrid's complete destruction at the hand of German opposition (more the former) will inevitably prompt a knee-jerk, senseless, big money move to placate idiot fans. Enter Brazil's top player.

The powers that be should really let Celtic (and in a few years, Rangers) play in the English league structure. They have a big enough fan base and media presence to potentially become major British and even European clubs in a few years. Hell, you'd find more supporters for those two than the big French or even Germany clubs in the English speaking world. The only major downside for them I can think of is it would very hard to get CL participation any time soon. Even with massive revenue growth, stealing limelight from the Prem's big clubs I can't see Celtic closing the talent/money gap to finish in the top four short-term.

You'd kill Scottish football...

I'm still not convinced Neymar is going out of Brazil just yet, call me naive, but he doesn't seem like the kind of player who's in it just for the money - he'd have left already. If he does go to Europe this year, I'm pretty sure it won't be on his own will.

Not much to kill buddy. Scottish football produces little talent, stunts the development of its big clubs in spite of their immense appeal (seriously, if Celtic had access to the TV and Sponsorship revenues of Prem sides!), and has an utterly uninteresting domestic league to a neutral observer like myself. The existing model is pretty much the worst case an all fronts: no major clubs, no youth development, no competitive top flight, and little innovation or inklings of modern football.

Brazilian footballers at the moment are regarded suspiciously in Europe for having little tactical knowledge of the European game, physically unfit, and of suspect mental quality. Those who do succeed are fragile and tend to adapt poorly to change (Robinho, Breno, Kaka, Ronaldinho, etc.). Obviously not necessarily true but a stereotype which informs the people who pull the trigger. Bayern officials are on record saying they simply won't sign any more South American young players. The scouting network there has even been abandoned iirc.

Given those conditions, Santos' asking price is way too high. I think it's not about what Neymar wants, but about what people are willing to pay. With Latin football in Europe getting a nasty hiding this week the morons in charge are suddenly more likely to take that risk.

This is particularly true. Aside from Dutch clubs not having the financial means to attract players from Brazil and Latin America, many clubs are wary of the fact that those players tend to have difficulties adapting to life in Europe and their different attitude to the game. Very few Latin American players actually succeed to any level in the Netherlands, which quite frankly isn't among the more difficult leagues to succeed.

That being said, I don't think Neymar will fit in the Barcelona team, or his playing style has to change drastically. I have seen him play at the London Olympics and to be frank, I wasn't impressed at all and I doubt he would even be the superstar in Europe that he is in Brazil.

Not much to kill buddy. Scottish football produces little talent, stunts the development of its big clubs in spite of their immense appeal (seriously, if Celtic had access to the TV and Sponsorship revenues of Prem sides!), and has an utterly uninteresting domestic league to a neutral observer like myself. The existing model is pretty much the worst case an all fronts: no major clubs, no youth development, no competitive top flight, and little innovation or inklings of modern football.

Brazilian footballers at the moment are regarded suspiciously in Europe for having little tactical knowledge of the European game, physically unfit, and of suspect mental quality. Those who do succeed are fragile and tend to adapt poorly to change (Robinho, Breno, Kaka, Ronaldinho, etc.). Obviously not necessarily true but a stereotype which informs the people who pull the trigger. Bayern officials are on record saying they simply won't sign any more South American young players. The scouting network there has even been abandoned iirc.

Given those conditions, Santos' asking price is way too high. I think it's not about what Neymar wants, but about what people are willing to pay. With Latin football in Europe getting a nasty hiding this week the morons in charge are suddenly more likely to take that risk.

I agree with X here.

Celtic and Rangers would be better off in the Premier League, as Swansea knows, and as Cardiff will know.
While Celtic and Rangers would do well to finish mid-table if they could establish themselves in the Premier League they'd start to benefit from massive amounts of cash on offer.
Saying that, they would have to compromise. Its unlikely they'd qualify for the Champion's League or Europa League in the Premier League. Then again, they never get anywhere in those competitions anyway.

Let's be realistic here, Scottish football is dead at the moment.
They've removed any competition in the SPL by kicking Rangers out.
Their policy of stealing mediocre English players stinks, they should focus on developing their own youth players.
Scotland's manager is as incompetent at managing as he is at being a pundit.

I'm guessing the only reason why Celtic and Rangers haven't asked to join the Premier League is because either themselves or the SFA are too patriotic to consider the thought of two Scottish teams playing in the English league.

They were offered the chance to join the premier league and they refused it, you underestimate the support for football in Scotland, most people support their local team. Celtic and Rangers would become just another club in the EPL.
They are focusing on youth development, according to some guy I know there's a lot of talented youth players coming through in the next few years. They'll probably play in the EPL but he thinks they'll put us back in the World Cup.

It has nothing to do with support for football in Scotland -- I don't doubt it in the slightest, in fact, that's my point. Sure, the EPL is a plastic league but I don't think it would change support for Celtic or Rangers one iota if they played with the big boys. In fact, it would increase. In part because those two clubs are actually those which are not just limited to local support.

Support for those clubs is enough to ratchet them into a higher echelon of quality if they actually played in a competition appropriate to their support, history, financial potential, and so forth.

Focusing on youth development -- whatever. I'll believe it when I see it. And even if they do, what are the odds of more stereotypical backwards British-style footballers?

I would like Scottish football to do well. For it to do well it has to raise the bar through youth, modernization, and competitiveness. Rangers and Celtic joining would at least help the latter two.

I'll eat my....... er... glasses if Scotland qualifies for one of the next three World Cups.
In fact, I'm not sure if they'll qualify for the World Cup in my lifetime.

However, slagging off Scotland I must admit that English football is heading in the same direction as Scotland.
If we don't cap the number of foreign players teams can have then we're just going to be as bad as Scotland.
Its starting to have an impact now, its only going to get worse.

We've basically been playing the same backbone of players for about 5 years now, and Lampard, Gerrard, Terry, Ferdinand etc. have been in the team even longer.
The fact is we have no bright young players other than Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Phil Jones, and Danny Welbeck.
Our team in a few years will be dire.

I look at teams like Germany with envy.
I just hope the FA's new St George's Park does something for us.

Scotland's poor performance is just a blip, the product of an 80s teacher's work to rule. We lost years of school football and it's taken a while to recover. We have a new world leading youth training system in place and are recovering from the effects of the work to rule.

School football doesn't develop world class players anymore. If Scotland wants to succeed it must copy the German model (or Spain) and allow a competitive environment to develop at the top level. This means putting Rangers/Celtic in their own weight class and giving everyone else a fighting chance in the SPL.

The problem with the British in general in football (Scotland and England being lumped together here -- ha!) is that they're constantly convinced they have world leading anything and a league which actually helps the national team.

In reality, youth development is an epiphenomenon of passion for the game and chance, not the result of a successful model. The top league imports players from elsewhere in search of short-term success with little development of domestic playing or management talent, something covered up by trophies (SPL titles and the occasional European upset, EPL success in the Champions league on the back of foreign managers, players, and money).

People like Wilshere exist in spite of the awful structure in place, not because of it. Scotland's basically a mini-version of that. The continued complacency, handwaving over problems, and false solutions tide over fans in between failures.

I don't doubt Scotland (or England's) passion for the game and potential. What I do hold in doubt is that either is intelligent enough to put aside their own hubris and succeed.

To put things in perspective Soy, Uruguay has come fourth in the world cup of 2010, won the thing twice and recently won Copa America, with a population less than Scotland, little money, and no recognizable domestic league (I have actually seen a few matches of their league on TV...). But yeah, it's the teachers fault three decades ago.

Also, football cycles are way too short for the '80s to have as great an effect as you're claiming. Youth players don't develop much until they're a few years old and can play professionally at 17. It's roughly a decade from training to success. Germany reformed after Euro 2000 and reaped the rewards in 2010. Spain was a notorious underachiever, I would argue Van Gaal's influence on their football (among other things) roughly a decade after the late 90s (Euro 08), and so on.

Hell, the top scorer of the world cup wasn't even born until 1989! Which puts him first playing football at the mid-'90s in any organized fashion, and becoming a teenager (massive physical development and motor skills increase: ever seen nine year olds learning technical skills? very uneven) in... 2002!