Thursday, 19 November 2009

[Sport - Soccer] FIFA World Cup 2010 Qualifiers

Its been decided, the playoffs are over! All 32 nations which will compete in the FIFA 2010 World Cup have been determined. In just over 200 days the teams listed below will converge in South Africa for the much anticipated contest. (Click on image to enlarge).


There were a few upsets in the playoffs. Pity Gus Hiddink could not manage to get the very talented Russian side through the play-offs, Slovenia qualified at their expense. The other major upset (this one I was happy about) was that the Algerians beat the much fancied Egyptian side (while Egypt is a good side they've always been a bunch of faking divers and I hate them for that). The Greeks (in my opinion the dullest side in world football) managed to get past Ukraine by a single goal, sigh. But undoubtedly the Republic of Ireland with the unluckiest team (the irony) when it came to the failing to make it right at the very end. The saddest thing was that they were leading the much fancied French side in Paris until Thierry Henry blatantly handled the ball in the penalty area (twice!) to keep it in play and then crossed it in to what resulted in the goal which France drew level and enabled them to go through on aggregate.

The above information and world cup logo were obtained from the Official FIFA website.

Sunday, 15 November 2009

[Sport] FIFA World Cup 2010 Qualifiers (as of 15 November 2009)



With only 6 more spots to be filled the following from the following playoffs the team lineup is looking concrete. Thankfully the major African teams have qualified this time round, its hard to determine the African qualifiers due to a high level of inconsistency (at the 2006 World Cup in Germany the African qualifiers were drastically different to the 2002 World Cup in Korea & Japan). The following teams still have a chance of making it:

Africa
Egypt / Algeria

South/Central America
Uruguay / Costa Rica

Europe
Ireland / France +
Portugal / Bosnia-Herzegovina +
Greece / Ukraine +
Russia / Slovenia

The above information and world cup logo were obtained from the Official FIFA website.