Confederations Cup 2013

Brazil were outstanding last night, from the national anthem onwards you could see the passion in every one of them that they were gong to win no matter what. Overall i thought it was a good tournament, some cracking goals and excellent performances. Looking forward to the World Cup now, hope the Argies or Germans win it.

 

I think he'll do well, but to be honest there is the chance that ego will come into play like it did with Zlatan.

Neymar is used to being the main man, Santos if I remember rightly shut down their Futsal and Womens teams to fund his pay increase a couple of years ago (losing Ganso in the process), at Barcelona he is not going to be number 1 - not by a long way.

Before the last couple of weeks I'd always thought of him as a Robinho type - looks like a world beater in Brazil but I wasn't sure if he'd be too lightweight and greedy for Europe - but in this tournament he's been sensational. His passing is miles better than I thought it was, and his speed of thought will work perfectly at Barca.

As long as ego doesn't stop him, I think he'll be a huge success.

 

Decent tournament overall.

I was surprised at how easily Brazil swept Spain aside though, bearing in mind this Spanish squad had won the three previous major international tournaments. It does make you wonder if there were any under the radar payments made behind closed doors... but then I'm quite a big conspiracy theorist anyway.

 

That tournament was almost ruined by mark lawrensons commentating. "he looks like hes been in the fredge" *.

 

Gees peace

 

What happened to Ganso anyway? Wasn't even in the squad.

 

Neymar surprised me, I was wrong. Still don't think he's worth the money Barca paid but he certainly isn't as over rated as I initially thought.

I still despise him. He's a * cheat and had the cheek to accuse Scotland fans of throwing a banana at him. We got absolute pelters for that down there, turned out it was a German.

 

Ganso isn't first choice for Sao Paulo at the moment so he isn't really anywhere near the Brazil squad. The injuries to his knees coupled with him being over-hyped and him believing that hype too much has stunted his growth considerably.

 

To be fair, if it come from fans sitting in the Scotland end, he was hardly going to accuse anyone else. Anybody would have thought the same as he did.

Howevere, I do think he should have apologised for accusing them when it was proven that is was a German.

 

He's not a mind reader though, I can understand why he was upset.

 

His initial reaction was arguably understandable, he had no way of knowing it was going to be a German boy sitting amongst thousands of Scotland supporters.

When the Scotland support was vindicated though he still refused to apologise, and I think his reasoning was that he never specifically said that Scotland supporters were racist but he meant in some sort of general sense or something odd like that. I remember looking it up a few months back when this was being discussed on here, although I could be wrong with his reasons.

Someone showed me a picture though of his club holding a banner basically apologising on his behalf, which they shouldn't have needed to do. If he was willing to go out and make a claim like that, he should have been big enough to admit he was wrong and apologise.

 

He was a young boy that got racially abused. Can understand his mindframe.

 

A lot of the money to Neymar was from sponsors and apparently the Futsal and Women's team were hemorrhaging money. In the US alone there have been 3 or 4 "premier" women's leagues in the last decade and all have dissolved due to financial reasons. It's a bit much to put it on Neymar's back. Plus, with the transfer fee and shirt sales they were getting they would have known that they could still pump money into those sides if they thought it necessary. But it just fits with the portrayal Neymar has in European media. The ego part has never made sense to me. On the field he is much more giving than either Ronaldo or Messi - just reference the Gabriele Marcotti article. It's not just unfair, it's unfounded. He has also mentioned the fact that he doesn't even deserve to be compared to Messi and that the reason he wants to play there is to play alongside Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta. He's flamboyant, but he in no way is like Ibrahimovic.

 

Ah I see, cheers Happy days for Oscar.

 

Was surprising hearing that both Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen think Argentina will win the world cup next year, I think Spain will definitely bounce back.

 

And Coutinho.

 

Brazil suprised me in the final, best ive seen them playing for absolute years, Neymar had a great game too. Made me think twice about them although Spain never turned up, dont know if they were scared of playing their usual closing down game because Brazil have the pace of Neymar and Hulk on the counter or if they were just too tired. Either way they never turned up.

I think Germany will win the World Cup, suprised no-one says them. Surely a team with the quality of Neuer, Lahm, Hummels, Schweinsteiger, Gundogan, Draxler, Ozil, Gotze, Reus and Muller are going to make atleast the semis.

 

You'd think Coutinho might be able to take Hulks place in the team.