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The Final Six for South Africa 2010 will be decided tonight
Published by Ian John on November 18, 2009
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Last weekend saw the first leg of the European and South/Central American play off games contested, along with the final group Games in the African section, to decide the final qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup Finals. Congratulations to Cameroon, Nigeria who clinched two of the final three places available for African teams at the weekend. However Egypt’s 2-0 defeat of Algeria left both sides on the same number of points, goals scored and goals conceeded and with an identical, one win, one defeat, 3 goals scored, 3 conceeded record against each other. Thus, both Egypt and Algeria will meet in the Sudan on Wednesday for a one off, winner takes all, qualification game.
In South America, Uruguay will hold a strong advantage going into their home game with Costa Rica. Their 1-0 win in Saprissa thanks to Diego Lugano’s first half goal, enough to put the South American’s in control of the tie and seemingly on the verge of securing their place in the finals. Costa Rica will hope their counter attacking skills will be enough to worry the Uruguayan’s but the experience and steely resolve of the home side should see them through to South Africa.
In Europe France probably will be the best set of sides to secure their place in the finals after their 1-0 victory at Croke Park over disappointing Ireland, a game whose defining moments were two deflections, Patrice Evra’s fantastic last ditch tackle to deny Liam Lawrence a goal and Nicolas Anelka’s deflected shot that gave France the victory. It was disappointing that the only passion the Irish showed was after the final whistle had blown when Lassana Diarra made a remark or two that incensed the Irish team. While the game isn’t over, the French look well set to secure their passage to the finals on home soil.
For the six other sides contesting the final three European qualification spots, it looks a much tighter affair. Portugal will travel to Bosnia-Herzegovina with a one goal advantage and Ronaldo still likely to miss out. This looks a tricky tie for the Portuguese although they do seem to have found form at the right time. Russia will defend a slender 2-1 lead in Slovenia in what looks arguably the game of the night and Greece and Ukraine fought out a 0-0 draw on Saturday in Athens making Ukraine favourites to win the tie in the second leg in Kiev.
After Wednesday’s games attention will switch to the draw for the finals themselves, which will take place in early December in South Africa. The draw will be seeded and it seems likely that the eight top seeds will likely be the top seven sides in the rankings, Brazil, Spain, Holland, Germany, Italy, Argentina and England, plus one of either France, Portugal or the United States, depending on who qualifies and their ranking position by the time the draw comes around in September.
While I do not claim to have any precognitive abilities, I do have a really odd feeling that England may well end up in a group with at least two out of Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Don’t ask me why I have this feeling and it may well prove to be entirely inaccurate, but for some time now I’ve had this gut feeling that England’s group will consist of two other English speaking nations, plus one really tough other opponent, probably from Africa or South America. If I had to bet on it, I’d say England, United States, Ghana/Chile and New Zealand.
Time will tell…
Image Courtesy of ***Smemon 87*** on Flickr.com
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