The 2005 Confederations Cup
November 17, 2005Take one Teutonic host nation, add some Samba style, some Aussie grit, some Latin American flair, a dash of African eccentricity, a spoonful of Greek surprise and a heap of Asian abandon and you would get a soccer mixture akin to 2005's hugely entertaining Confederations Cup competition.
As a forerunner to the 2006 World Cup, Germany staged the clash of the global zone titans in a tournament of champions. The best from Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and Oceania came to the home of the World Cup hosts to do battle over the course of two weeks for the title of Confederations champion.
Not only did it give Germany a test run to try out its infrastructure, organization and -- of course -- national team, the competition gave DW-WORLD the chance to get in some serious soccer practice of dealing with a major tournament on our doorstep. Here are the results...