FanHouse Confederations Cup

The ecstasy on the faces of the Brazilian players celebrating the go-ahead goal near the corner flag and the tears rolling down that of their captain, Lucio, at the final whistle, demonstrated just how much today's Confederations Cup final meant to the world's most famous soccer team.

That measure of commitment, combined with a lot of talent and the flagging energy of a U.S. side struggling to stay with a superior opponent for the second straight game, was enough to overhaul a two-goal deficit and lift the Brazilians to a 3-2 triumph and the tournament title.

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Lucio scored a late goal to give Brazil a 3-2 win over the upstart United States and a second straight Confederations Cup title Sunday.

The Brazil captain headed in a corner from Elano in the 84th minute to help the five-time world champions hold off a spirited American team that had taken a 2-0 lead at halftime.

The U.S. national team's unexpected victory over top-ranked Spain in Wednesday's Confederations Cup semifinal set off a predictable, but still annoying, flurry of pontification about the growth and relevance of soccer in America.

Mainstream journalists who watch a game or two every four years, political types who wonder if soccer is consistent with American values and sports anchors who asked if a victory in Sunday's final against Brazil would install us as World Cup favorites, all turned up suddenly to offer their well-informed opinions and pile a bit more pressure on Bob Bradley's boys.

The coach and several players admitted they came out "tentative" in the 3-0 group-stage loss to Brazil. Imagine how much more frightened they'd be if they felt the sport's future depended on a single result? Thankfully, the U.S. showed against Egypt and Spain that it can play both aggressively and intelligently while ignoring external distractions and someone else's big picture. A similar approach Sunday could yield a trophy.

For about 85 minutes Thursday it looked like lady luck would shine her fortune upon the underdogs for the second consecutive day at the Confederations Cup semifinals. Host South Africa was giving powerhouse Brazil all it could handle, continuously stymieing the five-time world champions all across the field in Johannesburg.

Yet it all came crashing down in an instant for the determined Bafana Bafana thanks to a moment of brilliance generated off the foot of Brazil sub Dani Alves, who had only entered the match a few minutes earlier. The Barcelona back curled in a perfect free kick in the 87th minute around the South African wall to push Brazil to a 1-0 victory and a date with the United States in Sunday's final.

David Beckham can hawk his signature cologne in our department stores, including Macy's in New York, where an employee followed me down an aisle and sprayed some of Becks' metrosexual potion on me. But soccer? He'd much rather play in Europe than in our league, which explains all you need to know about the game's place in America.

In the stateside food chain of professional sports, men's soccer has been a can of Spam. If you have absolutely nothing better to eat, you nibble. It isn't so true on the women's side, where Mia Hamm and the golden girls captivated a nation for years and Brandi Chastain gave us a landmark moment for feminism by stripping down to her sports bra.

But the men? The quality of play has been so maligned that Giuseppe Rossi, who was born and raised in New Jersey and could have been a major star for our national squad, never even considered Team USA. In his teen years, he tapped into his dual citizenship and signed up with Italy, a global football power.

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Wednesday night in chilly Bloemfontein, South Africa, the U.S. national team lodged one of its greatest victories in its history, beating FIFA No. 1 Spain 2-0 in the Confederations Cup semifinals. The win snapped Spain's 35-match unbeaten run, denying them a chance to set a new record at 36.

This win almost made me pull out the thesaurus for the proper word to describe it. Stunning? Yes. Unbelievable? Pretty close. Deserved? You bet.

As a fan of the U.S. national team, you probably couldn't ask for more from Wednesday's Confederations Cup semifinal against Spain, especially considering how the first two games of the tournament unfurled for Bob Bradley's team. In short, the underdog Americans are up against FIFA's No. 1-ranked team, Spain, which has already set the all-time international record for consecutive wins (15) in this tournament and could break the all-time undefeated run (36) by defeating the Americans.

With a win, or even simply a strong performance, the U.S. can garner a boatload of goodwill toward the 2010 World Cup. At the very least it would erase the lingering doubts raised in the opening two games of this tournament.

All in all, the odds are surely stacked against the U.S., but that's why we follow sports, right? To see the chance of a colossal upset. The match kicks off from South Africa at 2:25 PM ET and we'll be blogging shortly before the opening whistle.

Imagine if that famous 1980 Olympic hockey game between the American collegians and the Soviet Big Red Machine had been played in Red Square instead of Lake Placid. Those were the kind of odds facing Bob Gansler and his young U.S. national team on June 14, 1990, when they kicked off against Italy in a World Cup match at Rome's Stadio Olimpico.

The American side defined "moral victory" that day, holding the tournament favorites to one goal and nearly scoring through Peter Vermes in the second half. "The difference between our team in the first game [a 5-1 loss to Czechoslovakia] and the second was psychological,'' Gansler said at the time.

Nineteen years later, Gansler told FanHouse that the psychological again will play the defining role as the U.S. faces similarly long odds against a Spanish juggernaut in the Confederations Cup semifinals Wednesday.

After what must be the most unlikely turn of events in American soccer history, the beleaguered national team with the supposedly incompetent coach and heartless, out-of-form players has survived to play another day. A surprisingly comprehensive 3-0 defeat of African champions Egypt in Rustenburg, combined with Brazil's 3-0 win over reeling Italy, has qualified the U.S. for the Confederations Cup semifinals.

Spain, the European champion juggernaut on the 35-game unbeaten streak, awaits on Wednesday. But let concern over that Herculean task wait until Monday. For the first time since the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup final, Bob Bradley and the U.S. national team rose to the occasion and, on this day, certainly deserve passage.

It's Spain's world, the rest of us are all just living in it. Saturday in the Confederations Cup, Spain dispatched hosing South Africa 2-0 on goals from David Villa and Fernando Llorente.

The win extended Spain's unbeaten run to an astounding 35 games, which ties the all time mark set by Brazil in the early 1990s. Perhaps even more impressive is that Spain has won its last 15 matches during the streak to set a world record there as well. Nobody is even close to Spain's level, although they haven't exactly played the world's toughest team's yet in this tournament.