Brazil humbled world and European Champions Spain with a crushing 3-0 win in the Confederations Cup final on Sunday, ending their opponents\u2019 three-year record run of 29 unbeaten competitive matches
\nTwo goals from Fred, one either side of a stunning left-foot shot from Neymar, gave next year\u2019s World Cup hosts their fifth straight win in the competition as they clinched the trophy for a third time in a row.
\nSpain endured a miserable night with Sergio Ramos missing a penalty early in the second half and Gerard Pique sent off for a lunge on his new Barcelona team mate Neymar after 68 minutes.
\nFred put Brazil ahead after two minutes, Neymar added a majestic second just before halftime and the crowd erupted again when Fred made it 3-0 two minutes after the re-start with his fifth goal of the competition.
\nThe Maracana crowd taunted Spain and chanted \u201cthe giant is back\u201d as Brazil overpowered Vicente del Bosque\u2019s team whose last competitive defeat was against Switzerland at the 2010 World Cup.
\nBrazil started this competition just over two weeks ago with a third minute goal against Japan and began this final in similar fashion with an even faster opener.
\nFred\u2019s second minute hook-in while he was sitting on the ground lacked the powerful beauty of Neymar\u2019s strike against Japan, but its impact was even more emphatic.
\nThe crowd, who just minutes earlier gave a rousing rendition of the Brazil national anthem, raised the decibel levels even higher in celebration to settle Brazil\u2019s nerves, unsettle Spain\u2019s and put the hosts firmly in control.
\nOscar should have quickly doubled the lead but fired wide after eight minutes when Fred set him up with a clever backheel, while Paulinho went close in the 14th minute when he had Spain keeper Iker Casillas back-pedalling to keep his lobbed shot out.
\nSpain were clearly rattled by Brazil\u2019s rampaging start and they survived another early scare when defender Alvaro Arbeloa escaped with a yellow card when he was the last defender and sent Neymar tumbling.
\nSpain, who usually dominate matches with their intricate midfield passing moves, showed patches of their usual self-assured control, but they also looked tired and leggy following Thursday\u2019s exhausting semifinal penalty shootout victory over Italy.
\nIn contrast Brazil, with Fred, Neymar and Paulinho looking fresh and powerful, continually had Spain on the backfoot with a series of swift breaks, often initiated by David Luiz after some Spanish-style passing of their own.
\nDavid Luiz\u2019s name boomed through the cavernous ground four minutes before halftime when he raced back to clear a goalbound shot from Pedro one metre in front of the line with Julio Cesar beaten.
\nInstead of finding themselves pegged back to 1-1, Brazil were 2-0 ahead within three minutes.
\nOscar provided the final pass to Neymar who smashed an unstoppable angled left-foot shot past Casillas into the roof of the net.
\nSpain were bidding to become the first team since Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup\u2019s decisive match to beat Brazil in a competitive international at the Maracana, but after falling behind so early, that never looked likely.
\nInstead Brazil fans left believing that coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, who won the World Cup with Brazil on June 30, 2002, could deliver a sixth world title to the Maracana in a year\u2019s time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brazil humbled world and European Champions Spain with a crushing 3-0 win in the Confederations Cup final on Sunday, ending their opponents\u2019 three-year record run of 29 unbeaten competitive matches
\n Two goals from Fred, one either side of a stunning left-foot shot from Neymar, gave next year\u2019s World Cup hosts their fifth straight win in the competition as they clinched the trophy for a third time in a row.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}