Confederations Cup 2013: Highlighting Biggest Disappointments of the Tournament

While the 2013 Confederations Cup was largely a wonderful tournament, there were areas that could be considered disappointments.

One was the fact that Mario Balotelli was out for the semifinal against Spain. It would have been great to see a full-strength Italian side take on a full-strength Spain side. The two had entertaining matchups at the 2012 European Championships, but there was something missing when Alberto Gilardino was forced to replace Balotelli in the Italy starting XI.

Seeing Balotelli's goal celebration after scoring against Spain would have made the game entertaining enough.

More importantly, the striker demonstrated in this tournament everything that makes him a gifted young striker. He was relatively well behaved and dangerous on the pitch, and that was only in regard to what he could do to the opposing back four.

Having him injured was definitely a letdown, but it was far from something that took a lot away from the tournament.

Here are four much bigger disappointments from the Confederations Cup.

Sergio Ramos and Gerard Pique

It's a debate as to whom had the worse final performance. Sergio Ramos and Gerard Pique were absolutely dreadful and each had one moment that could be considered as the most egregious.

For Pique, there was the red card he received in the 68th minute. It was a foolish tackle that connected with Neymar's shin. You can't claim the winger made the most of it like he has done with other challenges. Pique caught him flush and paid the price.

For Ramos, there was the poor penalty he sent wide that could have possibly gotten Spain back in the match when they were down 3-0.

With only Sergio Busquets as the holding midfielder, the Spain defense was stretched against Italy and Brazil. That only left Ramos and Pique more exposed.

In regard to Pique, the final performance only symbolizes his massive decline. He has not done enough recently to warrant an automatic starting place any more. It will be interesting to see if Vicente del Bosque has the wherewithal to bench the centre-back.

Mexico

You have to give Mexico credit. El Tri were very consistent in the fact that they came into the tournament with massive question marks, and they're leaving with massive question marks.

Jose Manuel de la Torre decided to make a lot of changes to his lineup throughout the tournament, to varying degrees of success. The fact that he felt the need to make so many adjustments is very telling as to where different players stand and how few have stamped their places on the team.

More importantly, there wasn't a lot of confidence or risk-taking from the squad. The players looked unsure of themselves the majority of the time and didn't create much in attack.

The kind of problems that have plagued Mexico in CONCACAF World Cup qualifying continued to cause problems during the tournament.

This was an opportunity for the team to try and get things on track. Unfortunately, it failed to do so and didn't build any momentum going forward.

Nigeria

As the African champions, Nigeria should have done much more in this tournament. Instead, the disorganization that followed the African Cup of Nations win rubbed off on the Confederations Cup.

It's hard to come out of a 6-1 and actually come out worse for it. That's exactly what happened to the Super Eagles when they played Tahiti, though. The players only looked to be out for themselves, often trying to execute too many fancy moves and highlight-reel finishes rather than making the best team move.

If you need any more indication of the problems Nigeria is facing right now, BBC Africa reported that the Nigeria Football Federation has moved to reduce Stephen Keshi's influence on the team selection.

This is a coach who is fresh off delivering the country a title at AFCON. Now his own federation is openly undermining him. It doesn't bode well for the country as it tries to qualify for the 2014 World Cup.

FIFA

The tournament itself was arguably overshadowed by the demonstrations by supporters outside the stadiums in Brazil. It was incredible seeing fans openly fighting with police outside a stadium where the matches were going on.

Seeing the two images side by side represented everything that is wrong with FIFA. The organization was completely tone deaf, which couldn't have been more apparent than when the official wine of the 2014 World Cup was unveiled while protests were happening across the country, per The Guardian.

The Times' Tony Evans decided to have some fun with the news.

On one hand, it's great to see supporters actually mount opposition to FIFA. The World Cup is nothing but a cash cow for FIFA, and it couldn't care less about what happens to the country in the long term. It's just there to demand a country spend billions on new stadiums and infrastructure, in order to increase the financial coffers at the end of the tournament.

The disheartening part came when you realized just how poor an organization can be at times.