| | |  Americas & Beyond | June 2009 
South Africa Hosts FIFA Confederations Cup 2009
 Michael Glover - PVNN
| | Fans at the opening of this year's FIFA Confederation's Cup. | |
The World Cup is due to start in exactly 357 days, with South Africa hosting a whole month of footballing excitement.
But the southern most country of the African continent has a different focus at the moment. With its national team already qualified for the footballing world's most prestigious tournament, the country is currently concentrating on hosting the FIFA Confederations Cup 2009.
Many people are blissfully unaware of this tournament and those who are tend to regard it as merely friendlies that have been falsely labelled as competitive matches.
But this year the eight teams involved have selected their best possible squads for FIFA's World Cup warm up tournament, and the competition seems to be highly important to the players taking part.
So, what is the Confederations Cup? And what's it all about?
How Did it Start?
The tournament began in 1992 as the King Fahd Cup, a competition organised by and staged in Saudi Arabia.
Teams competing involved the Saudi national side, who were the 1988 Asian Cup winners, Ivory Coast, the 1992 African Nations Cup champions, 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup winners USA, and eventual champions Argentina, who qualified through winning the 1991 Copa America.
In 1997 FIFA took control of the competition, renamed it the FIFA Confederations Cup and held it every two years. Since then, Brazil and France have managed to win the tournament twice each while Mexico were champions in 1999.
But after Brazil took their second title in 2005 it was decided to stage the competition every year prior to a World Cup, meaning it would take place every four years.
The tournament takes place in the same country as the following year's World Cup, and is seen as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming major competition.
Who Takes Part?
When the competition first started in 1992, there were only four teams taking part. In recent years, however, including 2009, there have been eight nations from across the globe involved.
This year, South Africa automatically take their place as hosts along with Italy, who qualify as World Champions in 2006.
The further six teams are made up by the winners of: the 2008 European Championship (Spain); the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup (USA); Copa America 2007 (Brazil); the AFC Asian Cup 2007 (Iraq); 2008 African Cup of Nations (Egypt); and the OFC Nations Cup 2008 (New Zealand).
It would be a mistake to presume the low profile of the Confederations Cup has resulted in these nations taking weakened squads to South Africa this year.
All the squads are at full possible strength and it seems the competition is being taken seriously by everyone with Spain demolishing New Zealand 5-0 on Sunday and Brazil edging out Egypt in a 4-3 thriller on the following day.
Names known across the footballing world are taking part in the tournament this year, including superstars Xavi, Fernando Torres, Cesc Fabregas, Gianluigi Buffon and Luca Toni, as well as Brazilians Robinho, Daniel Alves and Kaka.
The Momentous to the Mourning
In its relatively short 17 year history the Confederations Cup has had both its magnificent and saddening moments.
1997 saw a footballing lesson handed to Austria as they were destroyed 6-0 with the legendary strikers Ronaldo and Romario scoring a hat trick each. But two years later, in the 1999 final, Brazil were stopped in their tracks as Mexico defeated them in a 4-3 thriller in front of 110,000 people in Mexico City.
But the 2003 tournament was struck by tragedy when Cameroon and Manchester City midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe collapsed and died during his side's semi final against Colombia.
Foe was 28 and it was later found that he died of a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Cameroon were eventually defeated by France in the final after which two of Foe's team mates held a huge photograph of him and hung a runner's up medal around it.
Whatever the outcome of this year's FIFA Confederations Cup, its profile is on the way up and the friendly tag seems to slowly falling away from a tournament that involves the best teams from every continent.
Michael Glover is a volunteer with Global Volunteers Projects in the sports journalism sector. He has recently finished his second year (out of three) at university, studying sports journalism in England and is interning in Guadalajara Mexico to gain sports journalism work experience. |
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