FanHouse ConfederationsCup

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.

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.

Bob Bradley and the rest the U.S. national team ought to send a bouquet of flowers to Egyptian coach Hassan Shehata, after his Pharaohs upended Italy 1-0 in the Confederations Cup Group B play.

Even though the U.S. has been outscored 6-1 in two matches, on top of being generally outclassed, amazingly the Americans still have some semblance of a chance to advance ... assuming they can beat Egypt at least 5-0 Sunday and Italy loses to Brazil.*

Piece of cake.

When the draw for the 2009 Confederations Cup took place a couple months ago, American soccer fans circled the date June 18. Why? One word: Brazil. It's just not every day you get to play against the team most consider the best team in the world.

The U.S., which looked good for a half vs. Italy on Monday (and terrible for the other), probably needs to take at least a point against Kaka, Robinho & Co. Thursday in Pretoria, otherwise the final group stage on Sunday vs. Egypt will probably be rendered moot.

Action kicks off at 9:55 AM ET on ESPN2. We'll be live blogging shortly before then.

If you just look quickly at Spain's 1-0 victory over Iraq Wednesday in Confederations Cup play, it might seem like a letdown after the European's champ's 5-0 crunching of New Zealand over the weekend.

Yet, when you're on the roll like the Spanish National Team has been on for the last three years, all the victories tend to blend into one. More importantly, Wednesday's win pushed the country one shy of matching Brazil's all-time unbeaten run of 35 games.

Ah, the Confederations Cup. Can't you just smell the excitement?

Since it's inception in 1992 as the King Fahd Cup, it's been a bit of a curiosity. Is it a full-fledged International tournament? Is it simply a dry run for the World Cup? Is it something the nations and players participating even care about?

The answer is probably a little bit of each and we'll find out a little more when the tournament kicks off Sunday in South Africa when the hosts play Iraq in Johannesburg.