FIFA Confederations Cup 2009: Some Information

FIFA Confederations Cup 2009 tournament is going to start from today and it is taking place in South Africa. You know that World Cup football 2010 is supposed to take place in the same place next year. So, you may consider the current tournament as a dress rehearsal for the World Cup for the organizers. Of course, earlier this year, South Africa hosted Indian premier league cricket the event and it was a total success for the country. Eight teams are participating and all of them are the champions of their own continent. Thus, we have Brazil as the current champion of Copa America. South Africa is the host country while Italy is the World Cup champion.

The participating teams are:

South Africa

Italy

USA

Brazil

Iraq

Egypt

Spain

New Zealand

In the group of states, the eight teams have been divided into two groups and the top two teams of each group will go to the semifinal. In Group A, the teams are South Africa, Spain, Iraq and New Zealand while in Group B, the four teams are: United States, Brazil, Egypt and Italy. It seems to me that from group a, Spain and SA I will go to the semifinals file in Kobe, Brazil and Italy are the favorites. The final match will take place on 29 June 2009.

Normally, in this blog, I have rarely written about football except the business aspect. The main reason is that Football is not a very popular game in south Asia. In fact, in countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and three Lanka, it is in a distant second position compared to cricket when the matter of popularity comes. It makes me sad because I am a passionate supporter of this game. I feel that South Asian people are losing a lot by not giving adequate importance to football. I think this way because it is the most popular and richest sports in the world. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka all have won the championship of World Cup Cricket one time each. However, this win hardly counts outside of South Asia because even in England, now a days, cricket has hardly any popularity compared to football.

Anyway, if you want to get detailed information about FIFA Confederations Cup 2009 then visit the following websites:

FIFA

Wikipedia

I think that Brazil, Italy and Spain are the top favorites and any of them will win the trophy. However, I also like to see South Africa doing well because then it will give a boost to their preparation of World Cup 2010.