The USA caused a major upset at the Confederations Cup when they beat Spain 2 – 0 to advance to the final.
Before Wednesday’s match, Spain had gone 35 matches unbeaten with the last 15 games all wins, a world record.
Anything else but victory for the European Champions looked unlikely, particularly as the USA had started the tournament with a 3 – 1 loss to Italy followed by a 3 -0 defeat to Brazil. But they reached the last four courtesy of a 3 – 0 win over Egypt.
The USA went close on a couple of occasions before taking the lead on 27 minutes. Jozy Altidore out muscled his new Villarreal team mate Jean Capdevila and shot home despite the best efforts of Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas. The goal was the first conceded by Spain in over 450 minutes of football.
Tim Howard was then forced in to a string of fine saves from Torres, Fabregas and Ramos' before the underdogs sprung forward for about the only time in the second half.
Landon Donovan rolled a ball across the 6 yard box and Clint Dempsey robbed Ramos to double his team’s advantage.
Wth a meeting against Brazil or South Africa in the final awaiting them, the USA team were thrilled at their achievement and coach Bob Bradley said:
It’s exciting, a great team effort. To beat an amazing team like Spain and make the final, it’s big.
We played as hard as we could and that’s what it took. Every guy contributed, so it’s a very good feeling.
All merits to the USA “soccer” team, but Spain deserved to loose for the excess of confidence. Nowadays in FOOTBALL there are no easy matches, no matter how good your team is playing you always have to respect your opponent.
Wise words amigo.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if USA beat Brazil (assuming Brazil beats SA) in the final and the only reason the USA is even this far is because Brazil tucked 3 away against Italy?
I may be getting ahead of myself here a little bit saying that there is any chance that the USA would beat Brazil but hell, as we’ve been proved 2 times already, football is a crazy game!
First Brazil will have to beat South Africa, I’m Brazilian and I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened, even though there is now way you could compare both squads apart that both have brazilian couches.
I know a couple of people who’ve said the US got lucky. Yeah, they did, but you still have to reach out and grab luck when it drops in front of you.
I’m not an expert, but I was watching and wondering why Spain weren’t attacking from the right wing more often. They seemed intent on trying to break through the center, and all I saw was a big white blot of US jerseys there.