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Argentine football legend Diego Maradona (centre) during a coaching course at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, yesterday. Maradona, 52, visited Indonesia for four days to conduct coaching courses for children in Jakarta, Surabaya and Makassar.
RIO DE JANEIRO: Today’s Confederations Cup pits hosts and holders Brazil against world champions Spain in an encounter for the game’s purists.
r Spain are the form team of the past six years but Brazil look to be on the way back under 2002 World Cup-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari and the Selecao also lead their head-to-head record with four wins and two draws in eight previous meetings with La Furia Roja.
r The Spanish won the first meeting at the 1934 World Cup in Italy.
r But the Selecao made up for that with a 6-1 stroll in Rio before a 153,000 crowd 16 years later - although the Brazilians would go on to suffer a shock loss in the final against Uruguay in the Maracana.
r The Brazilians won again in the 1962 World Cup in Chile, where they retained the trophy they had finally lifted for the first time in Sweden four years earlier inspired by a teenaged Pele.
r The next meeting came at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, where neither side could find a breakthrough in a goalless stalemate in Mar del Plata.
r A Socrates goal proved decisive at the 1986 World Cup group stage in Mexico before Spain won a 1990 friendly in Gijon ahead of a draw in 1999 in Vigo for their most recent meeting, another friendly.REUTERS
