Confederations Cup

The last four games are at decent times.  Still curious about Tanzania, should get a result.

Does anyone know of a 24 hour sports pub with Sky in Auckland, without the music?

Just Heard on 3 news that Nelson is going to be out for the Confeds cup.  Can anyone confirm or deny this?

I heard he went off against Chelsea limping.....not good at all for our hopes of stoppping the Spanish!!

From 'TribalFootball.com':

Brazilian squad for WC qualifiers in June and Confederations Cup:

Goalkeepers: Julio Cesar (Inter Milan), Gomes (Tottenham Hotspur), Victor (Gremio)

Defenders: Maicon (Inter Milan), Daniel Alves (Barcelona), Alex (Chelsea), Juan (AS Roma), Lucio (Bayern Munich), Luisao (Benfica), Kleber (Internacional), Andre Santos (Corinthians).

Midfielders: Anderson (Manchester United), Gilberto Silva (Panathinaikos), Josue (VfL Wolfsburg), Ramires (Cruzeiro), Elano (Manchester City), Felipe Melo (Fiorentina), Julio Baptista (AS Roma), Kaka (AC Milan)

Forwards: Alexandre Pato (AC Milan), Luis Fabiano (Sevilla), Nilmar (Internacional), Robinho (Manchester City).

why isn't Daniel in the team???????

Yeah I would have thought that Daniel Corte would get in before Andy Barron and that Winston Reid get in before Aaron Scott in the 23 men squad.

If Ivan stays for the World Cup, then either Mulligan or Olds may be cut. The World Cup Squad can only have 23 men squad and I think 2 or 3 non-traveling standbys.

Nice that And Barron thought that training with the Nix is "getting up to speed" to play Italy and Spain. I'm sure the Nix liked it anyway

I guess the fact that he has been training full-time will make a difference to his fitness llevels and get him as upto speed  as is possible. Being one of the three amatuer players in the team, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain with the confeds cup.

Having only 3 amatuers in our 23 man squad must be the closest we have ever come to having a full squad of full-time professionals.

How many amatuers did we have in the squad in the 2003 and 1999 confederations cup?

http://www.thetimes.co.za/SpecialReports/2010WorldCup/Article.aspx?id=987795

Interesting article from South africa...well interesting might no be an appropriate description. I am picking it must be an amatuer news website??

I mean some of the researched information and comments are a good effort, but calling Ben Sigmund a tough bastard and saying we kick the coconut milk out of the island nations?? not sure that is PC.
LondonChris2009-06-01 00:28:49

LOL

31.05.09
Qatar1:0 (1:0)Iraq
friendly

Not a bad brazilian team. Not bad at all when you consider they can afford to leave someone like Diego(Werder Bremen) out. I thought we might earn a draw against the Saffas but without Ryan Nelsen it will be very tough

Nothing.

There population is 10x that of ours, but possibly they spread all of the money (for football) too evenly and nobody was able to be developed to any exceptional level, so based on that ridiculous optimism which isn't logical in the least, they may field a very bad team.

And Botswana has far fewer people than us so we must be better (what happened to Tanzania that makes us better than them doesn't happen to us, which would act in the favour of Botswana).

So yeah, basically I base this hope on nothing.

Yeah, it's a very good squad - partly influenced by the fact they have to play World Cup qualifiers in the week leading up to the Confed Cup, so they've just made one squad for both sets of matches.

The Saffas expect to beat us heavily, that may be a good or a bad thing, not really sure. I still think Iraq is our best chance of points.

And LG - love your optimism.

Just off the wires, Anfield's Spanish Armada, plus eighteen of their pals, are South Africa-bound:

B Team??!!... Yeah right.
That should be one helluva game.Looking forward to it.

Awesome squad. The biggest thing the spanish coach has to worry about is how the hell hes going to choose his eleven. even coming up against the "reserves" of this team would be a memorable and historic day for the All Whites and NZ Football

haha the Botswana game is just what we need to get our strikers ready for the Confed Cup.

Damn! That's going to be great game to watch, pretty hard to pick a conservative Spanish XI from that list. I wonder who the Azzurri are taking?

Here's the first 13 players named for the Italian squad. Rest to be named shortly (I think they had a friendly or two to play first)

13 players named for Confederations Cup:

Goalkeepers: Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Marco Amelia (Palermo)

Defenders: Fabio Cannavaro (Real Madrid/Juventus), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Gianluca Zambrotta (Milan)

Midfielders: Mauro Camoranesi (Juventus), Daniele De Rossi (Roma), Simone Pepe (Udinese), Andrea Pirlo (Milan)

Forwards: Alberto Gilardino (Fiorentina), Vincenzo Iaquinta (Juventus), Fabio Quagliarella (Udinese), Luca Toni (Bayern Munich)

J.C.

What's the average age of that Italian squad? 62?

Dino Zoff, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Baggio all probably have a decent chance at a call-up.el grapadura2009-06-02 19:19:23

Gilardino FTW!!

Love it, the Confeds Cup suddenly seems to mean something to major football nations.

Gonna be a great test too see if we've got the goods to take on one of the best teams in the world

Iniesta out of the Spain squad due to injury he had picked up earlier in May.
Replaced in the squad by Pablo Hernandez of Valencia.

And now for some brutal honesty ...

It's up for grabs now.

One of South Africa's online news sources with an interesting view on the upcoming South Africa v NZ
game....payback time according to them.

www.mg.co.za/article/2009-05-19-black-record-for-all-whites

i wonder if the author of that article was australlian...lol

sure nows how to put us kiwis down.

South africa vs poland just starting now on iraq goals, if anyone is interested.

http://www.iraqgoals.net/ch3.html

Ta, I might have a quick look.

I just checked the NZ international records and up until we played Tanzania that other day, we have never ever played a full soccer international against a CAF nation nor even played on the African Continent with our National Men's team.

Friendly was historical. Shame we had to lose it.AllWhitebelievr2009-06-07 01:41:38

It's cause we're in it...

Not really

The author Brian Halpin is a Pom

nothing on the news about the All Whites game......