EUROPE - Group winners advance as well as four of the second place teams after a playoff. IN: 1 - Denmark 2 - Switzerland 3 - Slovakia 4 - Germany 5 - Spain 6 - England 7 - Serbia 8 - Italy 9 - Netherlands Second place teams: Russia, Greece, Ukraine, France, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal, and Ireland. ASIA - Top two teams from each group advance, third place teams play for a chance at the playoff with the OFC winner. 1 - Australia, Japan 2 - South Korea, North Korea Third place teams: Bahrain defeated Saudi Arabia 2-2 and will face the OFC winner. AFRICA Still has one match to go. CAF starts with a preliminary draw, resulting in 12 groups of four. The group winners and the best 8 runners up go into the final group. Now, down to five groups, the winner of each will qualify for the World Cup, while the second and third place teams will be in the African Cup of Nations. Currently, two teams have qualified - Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire South Africa automatically qualifies as the host nation, but participated in qualifying for the African Cup of Nations and was one of the four group runner ups eliminated. OCEANIA New Zealand won the OFC Nations Cup in 2008 and won the right to enter the qualifier against Bahrain. The first leg was a 0-0 draw and the second will be settled on November 14. COMEBOL All countries enter a single group and the top four qualify, while the fifth place team faces CONCACAF's fourth place team: 1 - Brazil 2 - Chile 3 - Paraguay 4 - Argentina Uruguay finished fifth and will face Costa Rica. CONCACAF Several rounds of eliminations result in a hexagonal, with the top three making it to South Africa and the fourth place team facing COMEBOL's fifth place team. 1 - United States 2 - Mexico 3 - Honduras Costa Rica finished fourth and will face Uruguay.
And all of that in list form: Argentina - COMEBOL Australia - AFC Brazil - COMEBOL Cameroon - CAF Chile - COMEBOL Côte d'Ivoire - CAF Denmark - UEFA England - UEFA Germany - UEFA Ghana - CAF Honduras - CONCACAF Italy - UEFA Japan - AFC Mexico - CONCACAF Netherlands - UEFA New Zealand - Oceania Nigeria - CAF North Korea - AFC Paraguay - COMEBOL Serbia - UEFA Slovakia - UEFA South Africa - CAF South Korea - AFC Spain - UEFA Switzerland - UEFA United States - CONCACAF
Summary of Africa qualifying: Group A is led by Cameroon on 10 points, followed by Gabon with 9. Eto'o and company will travel to Morocco, while Gabon goes to Togo on November 14th. Group B is led by Tunisia with 11 points, while Nigeria is second with 9. Both seem to have easy roads as Nigeria goes to Kenya and Tunisia goes to Mozambique. Group C will be settled as Algeria (1st, 13 points, +7 GD) takes on Egypt (2nd, 10 points, +3 GD) on the 14th. Egypt is hosting and will need to win and win big to make it to the World Cup. Group D and Group E are already settled as Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire are going to South Africa.
A World Cup without the world's best player in Messi wouldn't have been right. Hate what Maradona is doing there, but like that Argentina made it in spite of him. And an update on the UEFA Playoffs, FIFA has announced the seeds: SEEDED - France, Portugal, Russia and Greece UNSEEDED - Ukraine, Republic of Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia I still think this is some bullshit to get certain teams in. If they were that much better, they would have made it in on their own. If you really wanted to do seeding, use the 1-8 standings that they already have established. Here's what the match-ups would be: 1 - Russia v. 8 - Republic of Ireland 2 - Greece v. 7 - Portugal 3 - Ukraine v. 6 - Bosnia and Herzegovina 4 - France v. 5 - Slovenia
That would be nice an fair, because we would beat Ukraine. But what FIFA is doing is stupid. If Bosnia makes it to the World Cup we deserve to be there more then anyone. Think about it look at the group at the beginning of the campaign, Spain, Turkey and Belgium were all top 20 in the World and we were freaking 74th or 76th in the World! Then for 2 months we had a boycott and it looked like we weren't even going to go to the WCQ to even play it in. And now we are 42nd in the World have a top 5 best attack in Europe! And now we have to go through the playoffs to face either, France, Portugal, Russia, or Greece all top 16 in the World, I know you cannot find a tougher road then what Bosna i Hercegovia have been on, so if we quailfy and we don't even win a match our first ever time in the World Cup as an independent nation, I don't want to hear any bollocks come from anyone saying we shouldn't have been there. We deserves our damn spot there, unlike seem teams around the world who had to play 5 foot midgets and still struggled with them to win.
The UEFA draw is out. Ireland v. France Portugal v. Bosnia and Herzegovina Greece v. Ukraine Russia v. Slovenia Should be some good matches on the 14th and 18th.
[video=youtube;S-QXaa0kKTM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-QXaa0kKTM&feature=player_embedded[/video] That's intense. Egyptian fans attack the Algeria bus. (found form duNord).
Winners for the double Ireland v. France Portugal v. Bosnia and Herzegovina Greece v. Ukraine Russia v. Slovenia
I'd agree with that summary. I'm sure everyone has heard, but it hasn't been posted here, the other disappearing Ronaldo is out for Portugal. I pick Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine and Russia to win.
Good thing England's game tomorrow doesn't matter. The squad doesn't look too great without Gerrard, Lampard, and Terry. But then again, what squad wouldn't without three of the top four players.
Looks like my picks might hold through France with a 1 - 0 win in Ireland, are sure to go through Bosnia lost 1 to 0 which isnt terrible, but they were very unlucky on a couple chances (two shots hit the bar consecutivly), so we will see Greece held Ukraine to a 0 to 0 draw, and if greece just gets 1 goal in Ukraine, they will go through for sure Russia gave up a stupid late away goal in the last couple mins that might hurt them, but with the firepower russia has, they should score at least once in slovenia