World Cup Qualifiers!

[Elliot Kane]

Coz I figure I'll need a thread to cry in when England dismally under-perform again ;D

Seriously though - how are your team doing? And do you expect them to qualify? Who are your heroes & villains?

[Elliot Kane]

England results so far:

England 2: Andorra 0
England 4: Croatia 1

First team in 14 years to beat Croatia at home, apparently. They're a great team, and we still beat them! Nice to see

[Ubereil]

And apparently Theo Wallcot scored a hattrick (or something like that).

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

Yeah, he did. Probably doubled his value as a player in one match, there.

[peterh]

Portugal vs Denmark 2 - 3! What an insane comeback!

The Portugese were the best team, had home advantage and Deco was world class. Based on that they deserved the victory and given our key injuries, which hits us quite hard due to a limited amount of good player, I was happy to settle for a draw. The first half was quite good and we produced three good chances and played well. The second half was worse as injuries had forced us to play a midfielder in a defence position but we never gave up. And that led to the miracle.

Late in the first half Nani scores the leading goal and for a long time it looks to be the last. Then in the 83th minute Bendtner scores the equaliser after a great rush by Agger. Things are looking up for excatly half a minute and then we give them a stupid penalty that Deco finishes easily! Imagine the frustration and then the relief when good figh ensures a draw in the 89th minute. I went crazy and everyone was satisfied except the players! They never stopped fighting and two minutes into overtime Daniel Jensen scores the winning goal. It was crazy, such an emotional roller coaster. The Portugese HAD us until the 83rd minute but didn't manage to close the game. There's always a place for fight and heart in football - and that's what gave us the win!


I'm still estatic over the comeback of the year and if you want to see the goals it's right here. Listen to the Danish commentary - it's awesome!

[cleglaw]

Can somebody please explain the mechanics of how this qualification for the world cup works.

[Elliot Kane]

Cleg - all the competing countries are divided into regional groups. The teams in each group play each other twice - home and away - and the results for each group are tabulated into a mini-league table. The best teams in each group go through to the finals.

There are a few complications here and there, but that's the main idea behind it

[Hildor]

Belgium started the qualifications with a win. A miracle has been done.

[Elliot Kane]

Four games, four wins for England so far! first time that's ever happened, apparently

Let's hope we don't now get over-confident and ruin it...

[Gay Titan]

Love me some soccer and rugby men!!!

[peterh]

Denmark qualified for the World Cup after defeating Sweden last night. We're untouchable at 21 points with one game remaining. The battle for the second place is now between Portugal and Sweden - Portugal with 16 points and Sweden with 15!

I'm so freaking happy! ;D

[Elliot Kane]

Very well done, Denmark! From the dizzy heights of the equally untouchable England, we'll see ya there!

[twoheadedragon]

Now 23 countries have booked their tickets for the 2010 World Cup:

EUROPE

Denmark (Group 1), Switzerland (Group 2), Slovakia (Group 3), Germany (Group 4), Spain (Group 5), England (Group 6), Serbia (Group 7), Italy (Group 8), Netherlands (Group 9)

Play-offs:

Portugal (Group 1), Greece (Group 2), Slovenia (Group 3), Russia (Group 4), Bosnia-Herzegovina (Group 5), Ukraine (Group 6), France (Group 7), Republic of Ireland (Group 8)

- The draw for the play-offs will be held in Zurich at 13:00 BST on Monday. The four seeded teams will be chosen according to the latest world rankings which will be published on Friday at 09:00. (France, Portugal, Russia, and Greece were chosen as seeded teams, while Ukraine, Republic of Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Slovenia were chosen as the unseeded teams. Seeded teams will be drawn against unseeded teams)

- The first legs are on November 14 with the ties completed four days later.

AFRICA

Qualified:

Ghana (Group D), Ivory Coast (Group E).

To be decided:

- Cameroon lead Gabon by a point in Group A and will qualify if they win in Morocco on November 14. If they fail, Gabon will qualify with a win away to Togo.

- Tunisia will make sure of their place in the finals with a win in Mozambique. If they do not, Nigeria will quality from Group B if they win away to Kenya.

- Top two Egypt and Algeria go head to head next month. The African champions must win by three to guarantee their place at the finals ahead of Algeria. An Egyptian win by two goals could result in the drawing of lots.

SOUTH AMERICA

Qualified:

Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina

NORTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA

Qualified:

USA, Mexico, Honduras

Play-offs:

Costa Rica (CONCACAF 4th place) v Uruguay (CONMEBOL 5th place)

- First leg in San Jose on November 14; return in Montevideo on November 18

ASIA

Qualified:

Australia (Group A), Japan (Group A), South Korea (Group B), North Korea (Group B)

Play-offs:

New Zealand (Oceania winner) v Bahrain (Asia 5th place)

- First leg finished 0-0; Second leg in Wellington on November 14



Hats off to the teams who have already qualified, and may the best teams qualify for the remaining spots!

[Elliot Kane]

Shaping up very nicely for the finals, I think Nice to see so many seeded teams knocked back if not out at the first hurdle. Shows how strong the field will likely be this time out

[twoheadedragon]

November 14th, 2009:

Okay, in Africa, the group stages are pretty much over. From the results, apparently Nigeria have qualified for the World Cup. Several teams are going to have to fight it out in the play-offs, including Egypt vs. Algeria.

In Europe:

Portugal 1-0 Bosnia-Herzegovina: Close game, I'm surprised Portugal couldn't thrash them at home. Hats off to Bosnia-Herzegovina for their effort, and hopefully we'll get a very interesting game in their home stadium.

Ireland 0-1 France: Hardly a surprising result, in fact, the only thing I find surprising is that France didn't win with 2 or 3 goals. I suppose Evra being denied a penalty had a hand in that... Credit to both teams for a spectacular game, and may the best team win in the Stade-de-France. For me (being fair to my Fatherland), the better team is the French team. ALLEZ LES BLEUS!

Greece 0-0 Ukraine: This is probably the closest match-up for the European playoff spots. Both teams are very evenly matched, I was expecting this goal-less draw. We'll see what happens when they play in Ukraine, and I suspect this gives the Ukrainians the advantage.

Russia 2-1 Slovenia: A decent fight by the Slovenians. They didn't give up, not even when they were 2 goals down, and their fighting spirit was rewarded when just a short time before the end they got a goal. It'll be interesting to see how it goes when they play in Slovenia; although a Russian victory (on points, that is) is most expected, the Slovenians have the home advantage, and just might pull off a surprise.

These teams next play on the 18th, with only the French having won their away encounter. May these be great games, games that will be worth remembering...

[Elliot Kane]

I think the way they fixed the play-offs this year was pretty disgusting, honestly. They only decided to seed it at the last minute and you only have to look at the teams left needing to qualify to see why. It might be good for the box office in SA next year, but it's not sporting.

[twoheadedragon]

Nov 15, 2009 14:10:55 GMT Elliot Kane said:

I think the way they fixed the play-offs this year was pretty disgusting, honestly. They only decided to seed it at the last minute and you only have to look at the teams left needing to qualify to see why. It might be good for the box office in SA next year, but it's not sporting.

I agree. As I said above, the only evenly-matched draw is Greece-Ukraine (if I had to pick which one was better, ATM I'd choose Ukraine).

But this is Professional Football, so of course they made it easier for the teams who most people would want/expect to see in SA.

I'm guessing most people don't really care whether Greece or Ukraine go through, hence their match-up.

A much fairer match-up would've been:

France vs Russia

Greece vs Ukraine (the only fair match-up they picked)

Portugal vs Ireland

Bosnia-Herzegovina vs Slovenia

Yep, that'd be a lot fairer and considerably more interesting for most.

[Elliot Kane]

I think the only way to really get fair was by random draw with no seeding. The way it was originally going to be until they noticed all the teams that might not make it if they did that...

[twoheadedragon]

Nov 16, 2009 14:00:37 GMT Elliot Kane said:

I think the only way to really get fair was by random draw with no seeding. The way it was originally going to be until they noticed all the teams that might not make it if they did that...

Ah yes, most certainly. But IF they were picked out, the draw I mentioned above would've probably been the fairest.

RESULTS (for November 18th):

France 1-1 Ireland: Controversy, disgrace! The Irish were the far better team, brilliantly netting a goal quite early on while dominating possession and missing many chances (the French Keeper did a good job, but everyone else on les Bleus did poorly). Then the unthinkable: Thierry Henry pulls off a basketball-style hand control of the ball, passes it to Gallas, who then gets an easy goal. This is why we need video evidence! If not, things like this will keep on happening. But at least it wasn't as bad as Maradona's infamous "Hand of God" goal.

Bosnia-Herzegovina 0-1 Portugal: Portugal have pulled off back-to-back wins, something none of the other European teams managed. Hats off to them for doing so, and great fight by the home team!

Slovenia 1-0 Russia: Amazing! The biggest upset (yes, bigger than the Henry upset) this night, the Slovenians have advanced on the away-goals rule! Hats off to them for stunning a far "stronger" team, and better luck to the Russians next time: I must admit, I was hoping to see them in SA; they are an entertaining squad and I hope Andrei Arshavin gets the chance to display his brilliance on the grounds of the World Cup someday.

Ukraine 0-1 Greece: Good game by the Greeks! They managed to win away at Ukraine, something the French team would find very hard to do. May they perform well in SA, and hats off to the Ukrainians for their recent buildup in form (which is pretty impressive, IMHO).

Algeria 1-0 Egypt: Great game by both sides! Plenty of chances, lots of spectacular saves, dramatic charges... But Algeria were the better team, having won this dramatic, tense encounter. Algeria are going to SA next year!

[Ubereil]

What entertaining results: 1-1, 0-1, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0.

Übereil