World Cup 2010

I figured I would start this with 23 of the 32 spots filled as of today.

Who's in:
Africa
South Africa (host)
Cameroon
Ghana
Ivory Coast
Nigeria
(Egypt-Algeria playoff for the last spot is Wednesday in Sudan.)

Asia
Australia
Japan
North Korea
South Korea
(Bahrain beat Saudi Arabia in the playoff; lost to New Zealand.)

Concacaf
Honduras
Mexico
United States
(Costa Rica goes to playoff on Nov. 14 & 18)

Conmebol
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Paraguay
(Uruguay goes to playoff Nov. 14 & 18)

Oceania
New Zealand

UEFA
Denmark
Ing-er-land
Germany
Italy
Netherlands
Serbia
Slovakia
Spain
Switzerland

Playoffs on Nov. 14/18:
Ireland vs. France
IRL 0-1 FRA
Portugal vs. Bosnia-Herzegovenia
POR 1-0 BIH
Russia vs. Slovenia
RUS 2-1 SLO
Greece vs. Ukraine
GRE 0-0 UKR
First team listed is at home the first leg.

Playoffs: Bahrain 0-0 New Zealand in BHR. New Zealand 1-0 Bahrain in NZL. New Zealand 1-0 aggregate.
Costa Rica 0-1 Uruguay in CRC. Second leg 11/18 in Uruguay.

Not to be nit-picky, but... well, nevermind, it is to be nit-picky. I can't help myself. South Africa is also in because it's the host country.

Haha, well you do have a point, they did qualify 5 1/2 years ago...

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:South Africa (host)

Well of course they are.

Predictions on which four of the European runner-ups get in? I'm guessing Russia, Portugal and France. And Ireland.

What? No Croatia? Where am I going to get my checkerboard uni fix?

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:I figured I would start this with 23 of the 32 spots filled after today. Who's in:

Conmebol
Argentina

never doubted it for minute

up7587 wrote:Predictions on which four of the European runner-ups get in? I'm guessing Russia, Portugal and France. And Ireland.

Well those 4 definitely are strong possibilities, but it's hard to predict who the play-in matchups will be... Ireland could very well play france, or something along those lines...

No no no... you heard it here first: Slovenia!

I was in Ljubljana when the qualified for the 2002 Cup... fun times to be had with thousands of celebrating Slovenes!

Actually, Bosnia-Herzegovina seems to be a team of destiny - wouldn't surprise me at all to see them win a playoff since they have had such a Cinderella run to even qualify.

I guess what I'm saying is... never bet against the Balkans. Just don't do it!

And forget that only 5 years ago, the Greeks took Euro 04...

But Stoney I'm sad your precious Lokomotiva didn't make it...

I'll miss the helmet of Petr Cech:


And the stunning mane of Pavel Nedved:

(and yes I am a ware that he retired from national team duty a few years back)

Meanwhile Christine Ronaldo and Portugal just barely squeak in. Life's not fair.

The draw for the UEFA playoffs will be Monday.

I know, I know... my poor fatherland.

Don't worry though... the Czechs will rise again!!!

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:Meanwhile Christine Ronaldo and Portugal just barely squeak in. Life's not fair.

The draw for the UEFA playoffs will be Monday.

I try not to be a spelling nag, but isn't it Christine Sinclair and Cristiano Ronaldo?

Well you might have a point, calling Ronnie by Sinclair's first name would be quite the compliment....

It is sad that we have no Bulgaria though, I would have rather liked to see if Victor Krum, er, I mean Dimitar Berbatov could carry on the legend of Stoichkov and Letchkov... Speaking of, one of my favorite header goals of all time NOT by Zidane:

Stonehouse wrote:I know, I know... my poor fatherland.

Don't worry though... the Czechs will rise again!!!

Are you Czech too? I'm bummed about the Czech Republic not getting in as well...land of my great grandparents. I guess I can go be miserable with some Kolach and my Pilsner Urquell for a day or two.

Draw was announced this morning.

Ireland vs. France
Portugal vs. Bosnia-Herzegovenia
Russia vs. Slovenia
Greece vs. Ukraine


I am picking Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovenia, Slovenia and Greece.

Therefore, it will probably be France, Protugal, Russia and Ukraine.

Also, what the heck is up with the 9th qualifying group. Only one team goes through from that group? Seems kinda weird to me.

DTR, did you have inside info, to predict Ireland vs. France?

I wish I could say yes, insider info from UEFA would be pretty damn insider... Ireland tends to get the short end of the stick with seeding (they've only been to the WC 3 times) so I went with my gut...

mattywizz wrote:Also, what the heck is up with the 9th qualifying group. Only one team goes through from that group? Seems kinda weird to me.

Here's the deal with UEFA:

There are 53 nations in qualifying. That makes 8 groups of 6 and 1 group of 5. The 9 group winners qualify automatically. The 8 runners-up with the best records advance to the playoffs. Since the runners-up from the groups of 6 will play more matches than the runner-up of the five-team group, only the matches against the top five teams in those groups count in determining which runners-up are the 8 best. It just happens this time around that Norway, from the 5-team group, was the one with the least points, even using the method above.

Thanks PPT. It didn't seem fair that one second place finisher only had 8 games to accumulate points, whereas the others had ten. Now it makes sense.

Do you think that I could start up a country in Europe to even everything up?

Well.... If the Basques had their way...

DaTruRochin wrote:Well.... If the Basques had their way...

Ana Del...???

I like where your head is at, but sadly...

ESPN has hired Marting Tyler, famous British announcer from SkySports to work the World Cup in South Africa. No word whether he will be in South Africa or a soundstage in Bristol. Seriously, only in America do we have the announcers 10,000 miles away from the action in the world's largest sporting event.

Hopefully this means we will be getting (a lot) less Tommy Smyth.

mattywizz wrote:ESPN has hired Marting Tyler, famous British announcer from SkySports to work the World Cup in South Africa. No word whether he will be in South Africa or a soundstage in Bristol. Seriously, only in America do we have the announcers 10,000 miles away from the action in the world's largest sporting event.

Hopefully this means we will be getting (a lot) less Tommy Smyth.

True. This is also the country where we get guys like Colin Cowherd who go from bashing the sport to hosting viewing parties for the MNT at their homes...