Confederations Cup - Spain Reaches the Third Place

After three great victories to Iraq, New Zealand and South Africa, the Spanish team was one of the favorites to win the Confederations Cup, but the 2-0 loss they suffered in the semi-finals to United States changed the whole picture for the team headed by Vicente Del Bosque, which had no other choice but to fight for third a place, whereas Brazil and USA were the ones that moved to the grand final. Not reaching the final seemed to have affected the Spaniards’ encouragement, which came to the Confederations Cup as the most recent European champions, having won the EURO 2008. No doubt the loss in the semis was not a great motivator for a team like Spain, which had an amazing debut in South Africa with a crushing 5-0 over New Zealand. Being the favorite was not a very useful, because the level of football of some of their opponents at the tournament was clearly inferior and this filled them with uncertainty regarding their true level. The discomfort of Spain was clear at the meeting before the United States, where some defensive errors and unwise changes of Del Bosque led them to the defeat. In the fixture for third place, which Spain won with a final score of 3-2, it was actually the South Africa team which started dominating the game, whereas their opponents lacked the speed that the host team showed from the start. The match started with both teams attacking each other directly in the goal area, which doubled the work of the defense and goalkeepers of both teams. The atmosphere of the first part remained charged with dangerous and exciting game action that at times threatened with opening the score at any moment. Nevertheless, the goals were left for the second part of the match, in which some successful changes were made on both the South Africans and Spaniards. These changes gave a turn to the meeting, which became faster and was full of thrilling plays that had both Iker Casillas and Khun Itumeleng on constant alert. From Spain, the most notorious and successful change was the entrance of Daniel Guiza, who came to replace Fernando Torres, while South Africa found a good balance by replacing Steven Pienaar with Katlego Mphela, who was responsible for opening the scoring after 73 minutes to take advantage of an error from the defense Alvaro Arbeloa, who did not cover his area well and allowed Mphela to pass and throw a shot that went straight to the bottom of Casillas’ goal. Ready to get the third position of the Confederations Cup, the Spaniards decided not to be intimidated by the pressure from their opponents and it was then when Guiza appeared to score a goal at minute 87, an action that was repeated just a minute later and put the score 2-1 in favour of Spain and made Guiza to became the figure of the Europe champions. When everything seemed to go in favour of the Spaniards, Mphela appeared again tying the score at 2-2 at the 90th so the game had to be defined in extra time. Spain faced its opponents almost without force and at minute 103, Xavi Alonso marked the goal that gave a deserved victory.