2017 FIFA Confederations Cup


The 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup was the tenth and final edition of the FIFA Confederations Cup, a quadrennial international men's football tournament organised by FIFA. It was held in Russia, from 17 June to 2 July 2017, as a prelude to the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Russia was announced as the host on 2 December 2010 after the country was awarded the hosting rights of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The matches were played in four stadiums in four cities: Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, and Sochi. It was the only time Russia hosted the tournament and the third time the Confederations Cup was held in the European continent. As hosts, Russia qualified automatically for the tournament; they were joined by the six winners of the FIFA confederation championships and the 2014 FIFA World Cup champions, Germany.
The final tournament was played in two stages: a group stage and a latter knockout stage. In the group stage, each team played three games in a group of four, with the winners and runners-up from each group advancing to the knockout stage. In the knockout stage, the four teams competed in single-elimination matches, beginning with the semi-finals and ending with the final match of the tournament. A third-place match was played between the two losing semi-finalist teams. The final match was also attended by young participants of the international children's social programme Football for Friendship from 64 countries.
The defending champions, Brazil, who won the previous three Confederations Cups, failed to qualify for the first time since 1995 following their loss on penalties to Paraguay in the quarter-finals of the 2015 Copa América. 2015 AFC Asian Cup winners Australia became the first team to qualify from multiple confederations, having previously represented the OFC in 1997, 2001 and 2005. This was the only Confederations Cup to feature the video assistant referee.
World champions Germany won their only Confederations Cup title following a 1–0 win over Chile in the final.
This was the last Confederations Cup held before being folded by FIFA in order to make way for the FIFA Club World Cup expansion, along with the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup.

Qualification

The eight competing teams were the host nation, the reigning FIFA World Cup champions, and the six holders of the FIFA confederation championships. If any team qualified for multiple berths, the next best-placed team from their continental championship would have qualified.
After Russia secured a spot in the tournament as the hosts, Germany were the first team to qualify via competition, after winning the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. The final match saw the Germans clinch the country's fourth world title through a 1–0 extra-time win against Argentina. Australia were the next team to qualify after beating South Korea 2–1 after extra time, in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup final. This victory marked Australia's first Asian Cup win since their move from the Oceania Football Confederation in 2006. It was also the first time a team had become champions of two confederations, following Australia's four OFC Nations Cup titles. Chile were the fourth team to secure a spot at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup after defeating Argentina 4–1 on a penalty shoot-out following a 0–0 draw after extra time, in the 2015 Copa América final.
As 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup champions, Mexico's qualifying path saw them face 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup champions United States in the 2015 CONCACAF Cup play-off match. The new format, in which the two most recent CONCACAF Gold Cup winners compete to decide the representative team of CONCACAF, was won by Mexico 3–2 after extra time. New Zealand were the sixth team to qualify for the tournament after defeating Papua New Guinea 4–2 on a penalty shoot-out following a 0–0 draw after extra time, in the 2016 OFC Nations Cup final.
Portugal were the seventh team to qualify, after defeating host nation France 1–0 after extra time, in the UEFA Euro 2016 final. The 2017 Africa Cup of Nations winning team, Cameroon, took the eighth and final spot with their 2–1 win against Egypt in the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations final. This was the first time in FIFA Confederations Cup history that three national teams from any single confederation participated in the tournament.

Qualified teams

The following teams qualified for the tournament.
CountryConfederationQualified asQualified onPrevious appearances in tournament
UEFAHosts 2 December 20100
UEFA2014 FIFA World Cup winners 13 July 20142
AFC2015 AFC Asian Cup winners 31 January 20153
CONMEBOL2015 Copa América winners 4 July 20150
CONCACAFCONCACAF Cup winners 10 October 20156
OFC2016 OFC Nations Cup winners 11 June 20163
UEFAUEFA Euro 2016 winners 10 July 20160
CAF2017 Africa Cup of Nations winners 5 February 20172

Venues

Four cities served as the venues for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. All four venues were also among the 12 used for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
On 8 October 2015, FIFA and the Local Organising Committee agreed on the official names of the stadiums used during the tournament.

Schedule

The full schedule was announced by FIFA on 24 July 2015. Russia was placed in position A1 in the group stage and played in the opening match against New Zealand at the Zenit Arena in Saint Petersburg on 17 June. The distribution of the knockout stage matches was as follows:
The draw took place on 26 November 2016, 18:00 MSK, at the Tennis Academy in Kazan.
For the draw, the eight teams were allocated to two pots. Pot 1 contained hosts Russia and the three highest-ranked teams in the November 2016 edition of the FIFA World Rankings : Germany, Chile, and Portugal. Pot 2 contained the remaining four teams: Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and the winners of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, which was won by Cameroon on 5 February 2017 to complete the line-up.
The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four with each group containing two teams from Pot 1 and two teams from Pot 2. During the draw procedure, teams were drawn into alternating groups and assigned a position within the group by drawing another ball. As hosts, Russia were automatically assigned to Position A1 in the draw. Since there were three teams from Europe, one of the two groups was certain to contain two teams from the same confederation, the first time this happened in a FIFA Confederations Cup.
Pot 1Pot 2

    • Match officials

    A total of 9 refereeing trios, 1 support referee, and 8 video assistant referees were appointed for the tournament.
    ConfederationRefereeAssistant refereesSupport refereeVideo assistant referee
    AFC

    Match ball

    The official match ball for the Cup was produced by Adidas and was named "Krasava", which is a Russian slang word for "beautiful" or "awesome".

    Squads

    Each team had to name a preliminary squad of 30 players. From the preliminary squad, the team had to name a final squad of 23 players by the FIFA deadline. Players in the final squad could be replaced due to serious injury up to 24 hours prior to kickoff of the team's first match, where the replacement players did not need to be in the preliminary squad. The official squads were announced by FIFA on 8 June 2017.

    Group stage

    All times are local, MSK.

    Tiebreakers

    The top two teams of each group advanced to the semi-finals. The rankings of teams in each group were determined as follows :
    If two or more teams were equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings were determined as follows:

    Group A

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    Group B

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    Knockout stage

    In the knockout stage, if a match was level at the end of normal playing time, extra time was played, where each team was allowed to make a fourth substitution. If still tied after extra time, the match was decided by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners.

    Bracket

    Semi-finals

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    Third place play-off

    Final

    Awards

    The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament. The player awards were all sponsored by Adidas.
    Additionally, FIFA.com shortlisted six goals so that football fans could vote on the tournaments' best. The poll closed on 10 July.

    Statistics

    Goalscorers

    Tournament ranking

    Prize money

    Based on final position, teams received prize money from FIFA.
    Competition stageFinal positionPrize money
    FinalWinners$5,000,000
    FinalRunners-up$4,500,000
    Match for third placeThird place$3,500,000
    Match for third placeFourth place$3,000,000
    Group stageFifth to eighth place$2,000,000

    Ticketing

    Tickets were distributed in four stages: pre-sale for holders of Visa cards, random draw, first-come first-served, and last-minute sales.