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Confederations Cup Semifinal: Yes, the US is actually in it. Against Spain.

June 23rd, 2009 | By: Brooks Peck | 11 Comments »

Alright. The reality of the situation has finally set in and now it’s time to get down to brass tacks.

We all know how good Spain is and how they haven’t lost in their last, like, 112 games, but you know what? They’re not taking this game lightly. Kind of. Says Xavi:

“It will not be easy. Even though they do not have much history, they made life hard for us in a friendly in Santander. [Jozy] Altidore, [Michael] Bradley and [Landon] Donovan are good players.”

See that — that’s respect right there. He even knows their names!

“I hope that Brazil would be our opponents [if we make it to the final]. We would like to compete with them and we would not lose our style, the feel, the triangles and the possession to win games.”

Alright, so going right into talk of meeting Brazil in the final kind of negates his previous statement, but whatever. A few notes on the game:

-Yellow cards from group play do not carry over to the semifinals. Yet, oddly enough, a red card in this match would not only result in missing the final, but also the first match of the gold cup.

-Bocanegra is back in training, but will probably be a game time decision as to whether he will play (sounds like he probably won’t).

-Jozy tried to talk some trash to Villareal teammate and Spain fullback Joan Capdevila via text the other day, but it didn’t really work out. Said Capdevila:

“Yesterday he sent me a message and told me that we had to be careful. But his Spanish is not so great, so I think he made a mistake.”

-The losers of both semifinal matches will play each other in a match for third place on Sunday.

-They’ll probably have the liveblog angle covered on the mainpage, but we’ll have some kind of running commentary/occasional updates throughout the match here.

[Photo: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images]

Tags: Carlos Bocanegra, Confederations Cup, Joan Capdevila, Jozy Altidore, semifinal, Spain, Xavi

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Comments

By Jack | June 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 pm

We just need to go out there and forget their current reputation. Remember Spain use to choke all the time. At the same time beating Spain does not make us World Champions.

Posted from United States

By Dustin | June 23rd, 2009 at 10:25 pm

If only soccer was bigger in America. We have some pretty big Mob Familys, if they were interested in soccer they could be out breaking Spainish players legs and such. Organized crime isn’t want it used to be, soo disappointing.

By Pseudinho | June 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 pm

They are actually previewing the U.S. v. Spain game on SportsCenter the night before the game. So its growing steadily. Maybe one day we’ll have our mafioso involved somehow with a leg breaking scandal. One can only hope.

Posted from United States

By oscarlimatango | June 24th, 2009 at 4:57 am

Look, its pretty simple, we are just better then Spain and we are going to kick their assess, i really mean it literally, i dont think they play american football outdee, do they?

By jeremiah | June 24th, 2009 at 5:59 am

USA was very lucky but it seems their lucks gonna run out. Torres will have a hat trick. 3-0 Spain

By Peter B | June 24th, 2009 at 7:32 am

“At the same time beating Spain does not make us World Champions.”… No, but beating Spain followed by beating Brazil does..

Posted from United States

By Ray | June 24th, 2009 at 8:41 am

I’ll have what Peter B’s having…with a side of heroine.

By Pseudinho | June 24th, 2009 at 8:55 am

Jeremiah a bold Paco Torres hatrick prediction

Posted from United States

By Ray | June 24th, 2009 at 9:14 am

Apparently Italy’s giving us a little respect…for what it’s worth:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=656762&sec=us&root=us&cc=5901&cc=5901

——————

“All the games now will have a certain level of difficulty, we know there is no easy rival at this point,” said Del Bosque. “[The Americans] have a very aggressive midfield and they don’t play around. All four midfielders can have an offensive effect, and [Landon] Donovan is very dangerous when given space.

“[Clint] Dempsey is another one with a good aerial game and he can hurt you in many ways. The other day, they played with a player next to [Jozy] Altidore that we hadn’t seen before, [Charlie] Davies, and he created a lot of danger as well. We have to be careful of their strengths, and a quick attack is one of them. We saw how Egypt played against Italy and the other day they were completely swept away by the speed of the American attack.”

Added midfielder Albert Riera, “The U.S. are very compact and working as a team. They have very good players in front. Two or three offensive players are doing things very well, but the most important thing for them is the teamwork.”

——————–

NOTE TO COACH BRADLEY: Did you notice they didn’t mention Conner Casey? I’m just using this for my own purposes. US 2-1 SPAIN.

By Ryan | June 24th, 2009 at 11:30 am

Jorge Larrionda to officiate today, he was the ref who dished out 3 red cards in our WC 2006 game v. Italy

By soccer goals | July 1st, 2009 at 5:21 pm

I hope that Adu receives playing time in the Gold CUp.

Posted from United States

Comments are closed