The Confederations Cup: Useless?

Well, if it’s the summer before a World Cup or a European Championship, it must mean another summer of thrilling Confederations Cup action. You're excited, too. I know.

This is perhaps the most pointless international tournament of all. The premise is interesting — have all the reigning champions of each confederation plus the World Cup holders face off — but the games are not. Yesterday, for instance, we had the mismatch of New Zealand and Spain, along with the mismatched score of 5-0.

Sure, for the smaller nations, it creates an opportunity to play the best in the world. But for those teams like Spain, Italy, and Brazil — they have all made the trip to South Africa for this — it just creates more unnecessary games. Most of those players have just completed another taxing season that ran somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 games.

In reality, though, far beyond the stated purpose of creating some excitement every two years, it seems that the Confederations Cup exists as a dry run for whichever country is preparing to host the World Cup. And that is why it is currently in South Africa. But surely, there must be a better solution for a nation to test its infrastructure and its stadiums without asking more from the top players in the world — and, of course, creating further injury risks. A club tournament, perhaps? Or better yet, use those facilities to host one of FIFA’s youth World Cups that seem to crop up at some level or another every year.

But maybe I’m being a little dishonest here. Yes, the tournament is largely pointless and, yes, the games are far from thrilling, but frankly, I’m glad to be watching actual games. It’s rather pleasant to have a few games to distract myself from the constant swirl of transfer rumors and the game’s ugly financial side.

So bring on Egypt vs. Italy. I’ll be watching.