Hollywood Ending Here We Come!
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“We had the fire and desire to win! We wanted it more than Spain tonight!” said American striker Charlie Davies following his side’s sensational 2-0 win over world number one and European Champions Spain in the semifinals of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.
The Hollywood fairytale continues for the USA as they hurdled yet another obstacle in their American dream by doing what many thought could never be done.
Not since November 2006 had Spain lost a match (1-0 to Romania), which in turn sent them on a world record equaling 35 match unbeaten run. Little did the Red Fury know that the Stars and Stripes would end that run in emphatic fashion on a cold winter night in South Africa.
When Spain conceded the opening goal in the semifinal that was the first they had conceded in 451 minutes of play. More ironically it was Jozy Altidore who scored the games opening goal after turning his fellow club teammate from Villarreal, Joan Capdevilla. Man of the match Clint Dempsey crushed any hopes of a come-back when he scored his sides second goal to seal victory.However, even before America took the lead, Spain did not look like the free-flowing, pin-point passing, eloquent team that produced a perfect run into the semifinals easily dispatching of all three of their group opponents, and tallying an impressive goal record with eight goals. In fact they looked staggered and stuttered in their performance on the night with passes often going astray.
Although the Red Fury did manage to create chance after chance, while still playing poorly, they simply could not score on the night. Their seemed to be an invisible wall in front of the USA goal as attempt after attempt went narrowly wide, was superbly saved by Tim Howard, or was blocked by a defender throwing his body on the line.
Vicente del Bosque admitted after the match that his side was beaten by a better team on the day, “We did everything we could to try and win tonight, we were just outplayed by a good rival. They surprised us. Our finishing was poor, but still USA came at us hard and it was a tremendous team effort by them.”
For the Stars and Stripes they are overjoyed by the win, “This win is huge for American soccer, and it is made even sweeter by the fact that we were down and out and came back to make the final. It is also our first final in a big tournament!” said Dempsey.
Overall the USA were the better side on the night. Although the Spaniards had numerous chances in front of goal they never really looked like scoring. The centre pairing of Oguchi Onyewu and Jay DeMerit were solid in defence. Dempsey and Landon Donovan sparked the magic in midfield which created the goals. More over the whole side looked a lot more confident and played with aggression and desire.
“When you play a team like Spain you have to work very hard and defend as a group. We made a special effort to try to control their midfield and not let them get comfortable. When we got the ball we knew we needed to be aggressive. We did that, and we were able to play our game, which was very important. We always knew it would be a challenge but we felt from the very outset we could win this game” said American coach Bob Bradley.
