5 reasons to look forward to the Confederations Cup
The Confederations Cup is a relatively new tournament, with FIFA taking over from 1997 before which it was simply known as the King Fahd Cup. The brainchild of the late Saudi Prince Faisal ibn Fahd, the competition began in 1992 as a four-team tournament which were Saudi Arabia, the 1988 Asian Cup Winners, Argentina, the 1991 Copa America winners, 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup winners USA and, Ivory Coast, who were the victors 1992 African Nations Cup.
Argentina won the tournament that year, beating the Saudis in front of their own fans but they lost in 1995, to Denmark, who were the 1992 Euro winners.
After FIFA took over, it became known as the Confederations Cup and was staged every two years, with Brazil and France (won twice each) and Mexico coming out victorious. From 2005 onwards, FIFA announced that the tournament would be held every four years, one year before the FIFA World Cup in the host country of the World Cup.
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Since it’s existence, the champions of the six biggest continental tournaments qualify for the Confederations Cup, which are the Copa America, the OFC Nations Cup, CONCACAF Gold Cup, UEFA Euros, the Africa Cup of Nations and the AFC Asian Cup. The World Cup champion and the host nation qualify automatically, however, if the World Cup winner is also the winner of one of the above tournaments, then the runner-up of that tournament will qualify as well.
The 2017 tournament sees both Russia and Germany qualify automatically, as the Russians are the hosts for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which makes them the host for the Confederations Cup, while Germany is the current FIFA World Cup winners.
The other contenders are Australia as the AFC Asian Cup winners, Chile as the Copa America winners, Mexico who beat USA in the 2015 CONCACAF Cup play-off, New-Zealand as the OFC Nations Cup, Portugal as the 2016 Euro winners and finally Cameroon as the Africa Cup of Nations. This makes this year’s tournament a very exciting one and it also gives fans something to look forward to with the upcoming World Cup less than a year away.
Here are five reasons to look forward to the Confederations Cup.
#5 Group of Death
The most popular feature of any tournament other than the allure of the tournament itself is the group of death. While the term sounds like it was made up by a child, it was actually coined by Mexican journalists when they described the 1970 World Cup’s group 3. The group contained the defending champions England, the favourites Brazil, two-time finalists Czechoslovakia and Romania. Since then, however, the phrase has been overused and misused many times over the years.
In the Confederations Cup 2017 however, Group A, which consists of Russia, Portugal, Mexico and New Zealand, could potentially turn out to be a very interesting group indeed. With Portugal being the top pick to finish the group at number one, while both Mexico and Russia could end up fighting for second place, no one has given New Zealand a chance despite them having won the OFC Nations Cup a record 5 times.
The last group of death was in the World Cup 2014 which consisted of England, Uruguay, Italy and Costa Rica with both Italy and England knocked out, and Costa Rica being the surprise entry into the round of 16. So you never know, New Zealand could go on to even win the Confederations Cup for the first time ever.