Ready & Waiting

The Confederations Cup provided a dry run for next year’s World Cup – with some surprises along the way

- Kier Radnedge

Football, in the run-up, had been almost an afterthought at the Confederations Cup. In fact, it turned out to be a decent competition for what is almost certainly its last stand as no one envisages a doubly disruptive further staging in December 2021 in Qatar.

Germany coach Joachim Low, a mite arrogantly, had suggested he and his team (on-field and off-pitch) had little to learn. Australia and New Zealand were expected to be competitive but modest, while Portugal depended on Cristiano Ronaldo’s mood. Meanwhile, the right of African champions Cameroon to send a team was under question after a governance row… which left Chile and Mexico as obvious joint favourites.

Hosts Russia were no one’s favourites; not even their own supporters after dismal group-stage exits at the 2014 World Cup and Euro 2016.

In the event the tournament generated some pleasant surprises, partly through the Russian fans who turned out in force for their own team and, occasionally, threw their enthusiastic backing behind Chile, Mexico and Cameroon. Not that it did them much good in the end.

With FIFA president Gianni Infantino talking of wanting to pull the agenda back to football, secretary-general Fatma Samoura, organising president Vitaly Mutko and CEO Alexey Sorokin took up the theme ahead of a tournament which included the full deployment of anti-discrimination monitors.

Mutko, also president of the Russian Football Union, had more reason than the rest to take a particular interest in the host team with their new coach in former goalkeeper Stanislav Cherchesov and only nine players from the squad who flopped at the Euro finals.