Mixed fortunes for our lads in Sweden & South Africa!

The seemingly never-ending circus of football has over the last two weeks given us tournaments annoying for differing reasons. Firstly, the Confederations Cup, officially a dry-run for next year's World Cup but pointless in a footballing sense. It did, in truth produce some interesting moments; Spain's first-half demolition of New Zealand, Brazil/Egypt, America's humbling of apparently unbeatable Spain, all sadly completely overshadowed by a load of mongs constantly blowing horns.

We did, though, get to see two of our very own, Brazilian duo Elano and Robinho, both playing key roles in Brazil's winning of the tournament, something they seemed surprisingly overpleased with. Robinho scored a goal in the groupstage tie against the USA, then made a further three assists, including expertly hitting the crossbar with precision from two yards out to allow teammate Fabiano to score the equaliser in the finale. Elano also chipped in with three assists in the competition, all from corners or indirect free-kicks, which must've confused City fans having watched him constantly fail to beat the first man with them for us.

Truth be told, the Elano we see for Brazil seems to be a completely different Elano to the one who sporadically bothers turning up for Manchester City. He had quite a good end to the season, and obviously hit the ground running when he first arrived, but the year in between largely saw him playing with his head up his arse. Internationally, however, he seems to play with an extra intensity, have much bigger roles in games and is unarguably one of Brazil's key players. It makes me question whether we get the most out of him, but also, if we really work on too much by the way of set-pieces in training. I was certainly surprised by Brazil's occasional direct style, and how clinical they were from set-pieces, generally involving Elano, whereas at City it's a notorious bugbear of the fans that we rarely trouble sides from them at all.

Over in Sweden, a typically 'almost but not quite' story, an England side lead by former City coaches, Stuart Pearce and Steve Wigley and involving three of our players got through to the final before being on the end of a bit of a beasting from a Germany team they could have knocked out in the earlier rounds. Joe Hart played three games and had quite an eventful tournament overall, including saving and scoring a penalty in the semi-final shoot-out, then receiving a booking shortly after that ruled him out of the final. Hart, for me, is the best of the young English 'keepers. I really don't want to see him leave but understand why he must play next season to have any chance of impressing Fabio Capello.

Micah Richards and Nedum Onuoha formed a partnership which, barring a perplexing last half-hour against Sweden, looked extremely solid. Both also managed to score important goals, again from set-pieces and overall made positive impressions. As the final goes, Germany were simply stronger on the night. Their first goal was very well worked and the second, well, a bit of a howler from backup goalie Scott Loach. Without the presence of a real striker England were always going to struggle if they went behind, and the game was essentially done at 0-2. Over the tournament as a whole, Ned proved what we already know, that he's solid, able to do the basic things right, and on his day a physical match for anyone. Ricahrds' performances might just give us food for thought. He looked horrendous at full-back last year, and not that great at centre-half just before, but he demonstrated in this tournament that he can still be defensively sound, and in an attacking sense seemed much more like the Micah of old.