The Monday Miscellany – World Cup Special

OK everybody, comb your hair, put on your best suit and prepare for an evening of hearing an orchestral arrangement of Take That’s “Rule The World” eighteen times, it’s award time.  The silver polish has been applied and the Poland Cup is awarded to Japan, whose heroic 1-0 win in, er, Uzbekistan, earns them the title of First Team To Qualify For The World Cup.

Hot on their heels are Australia, whose dire 0-0 draw in Qatar was nevertheless enough to seal progress to South Africa.  South Korea, also, qualified with a 2-0 win in the United Arab Emirates, aided by an atrocious goalkeeping blunder by Majed Naser which let Ki Sung-Yeung score the crucial second goal.

Keeping up the sequence of Guus Hiddink’s former charges reaching the World Cup with a full year to spare, Holland won 2-1 in Iceland to secure top spot in Group 9, probably the most one-sided qualification group in European football history.  Holland have six wins out of six, a record matched only by Spain and England.

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Good news for Scotland: their hopes of taking second place in UEFA Group 9 behind the Dutch were boosted as Macedonia and Norway drew 0-0 in Skopje.  Macedonia host Iceland on Wednesday night and another draw will be music to the ears of George Burley’s side.  Norway go to Rotterdam on Wednesday night with little hope of victory, even if Holland no longer have anything to play for other than FIFA World Ranking points to consolidate their seeded status for December’s draw.

It would be a cynical view – and therefore mine – that it says something about Scotland’s chances that one of their better days has been one in which they have not played.  Even if the other mid-ranking teams in the group are all taking points off each other, Scotland must take at least a point in Norway in August and then beat Macedonia in Glasgow or they face the prospect of being the worst of the nine group runners-up and being excluded from the play-off draw.

Another decent day for the Republic of Ireland, whose 1-1 draw in Bulgaria puts them in a commanding position in Group 8, where a second place finish would bring with it a play-off spot.  As long as they don’t slip up in Cyprus on 5 September, second spot should be theirs, particularly as Bulgaria must still play in Italy.

Slovakia have taken top spot in Group 3 off Northern Ireland as expected by putting San Marino to the sword, 7-0 in Bratislava.  Slovakia now look very likely to win the group with home games still to come against Slovenia, who don’t travel well, and the Czech Republic, who are so depleted after the mass bans handed out following the loss to Slovakia in the first Velvet Derby in Prague.

Then there’s England, who still manage to attract criticism even when they beat a nation of 15 million people after a seven hour flight in a match played at altitude on a potato field.  While it is true that they didn’t adapt their longer passing to the thin air in Almaty and that it took forty minutes to take the lead those are hardly cardinal sins.  A 4-0 away win against a team who are not remotely comparable with the likes of San Marino or Liechtenstein is fine, thank you very much.

We can ignore, too, those who use Kazakhstan’s disallowed goal as evidence of a defensive malaise; had Sergei Ostapenko been onside, he probably wouldn’t even have reached the cross and the ball would have sailed out of play without need for further analysis.

England won twice on Saturday, in fact, as Croatia drew 2-2 with Ukraine in Zagreb, the second draw between the two sides in Group 6.  If we assume England thrash the appalling Andorra on Wednesday (and they will), England only need a draw against Croatia at Wembley on 9 September to qualify, and that is only if Croatia can beat Belarus home and away between now and then.  In other words, full steam ahead South Africa.

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Words which are not being said in some of Africa’s footballing powerhouses.  Cameroon find themselves bottom of Group 1 after following up their miserable defeat to Togo in an ‘away’ match played on neutral territory with a goalless draw against Morocco at home.  Gabon, whose best player plays for Hull City, are top of that group.

Double African champions Egypt were caught with one eye on their Confederations Cup fixtures against Brazil and Italy as they lost 3-1 to North African rivals Algeria in Blida, which for them is a bit like England losing to Germany in Munich, except Germany are quite good.

Perhaps we should not be surprised by Egypt’s struggles.  For decades they have been winning the Cup of Nations regularly (1986, 1998, 2006, 2008) but have only qualified for one world cup, Italia 90, in modern times.  After taking just one point from two winnable matches, they don’t look like they deserve to be in South Africa next year.

There are no such worries for Tunisia, Ghana and Ivory Coast, who all have two wins out of two and look strong candidates for a repeat World Cup journey next summer.  The Ivory coast are vulnerable though, they travel to Burkina Faso a week on Saturday to face Africa’s dark horses.  The Burkinabe have two wins out of two; a commanding 4-2 win at home to Guinea, who are underperforming as ever, and a 1-0 win in Malawi on Saturday.  As ever, Africa provides the most even and unpredictable qualifying tournament.

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Anybody who wants to put England’s result into context can examine Portugal’s result, a 2-1 win in Albania achieved only with a 93rd minute winner from Bruno Alves, the big Porto centre-back.

Albania are better than Kazakhstan, but only marginally.  Portugal remain a ponderous side, lacking penetration, confidence and sensible tactics from their harried manager, the former Manchester Utd number two Carlos Queiroz, who is doing about as well with his country as he did on his last sojourn into management at Real Madrid.

With Denmark winning 1-0 in Stockholm, all but ending Sweden’s hopes of making top spot in Group 1, Portugal now have renewed hope of taking a play-off berth behind the seemingly unstoppable Danes.  Hungary may have four points advantage over them but they have played all their easy matches against Albania and Malta and will do well to get another win in the rest of the campaign.

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We welcome back our old friends Brazil, who have remembered how to play football again with a 4-0 win in Uruguay, despite being reduced to ten men in the second half when Luís Fabiano was sent off for diving (he didn’t, actually).  The Sevilla striker had already bagged a superb goal but the memorable moment of the match was Uruguay goalkeeper Sebastián Viera failing top stop a hopeful long-range punt from right-back Daniel Alves.  Saturday was not a good day to be a goalkeeper.

What, though, is the problem with Argentina?  They seemed to be suffering from a Bolivia hangover as they stumbled to a 1-0 win over Colombia in Buenos Aires, their goal coming from defender Daniel Díaz volleying in from a corner.  Their supreme forward line of Carlos Tévez, Daniel Milito and Lionel Messi struggled to break down the Colombian defense and Diego Maradona’s tactics, a curious 3-3-1-3 formation (with Jonás Gutiérrez as the one, I ask you), causing only disarray at the back and confusion up front.  Only when Javier Zanetti was brought on at half-time and a back four employed did Argentina play anything like well.  Their defense remains a big worry; keeping a clean-sheet against the extraordinarily shot-shy Colombians (six goals in thirteen matches, fewer even than Peru) is hardly proof of dependability at the back.

The best performance of the weekend in South America, though, was Chile’s 2-0 win in Paraguay, who were top of the table on Saturday morning.  Spurred on by some quality wing play by Jean Beausejour and Alexis Sánchez, they took advantage of Paraguay’s continuing dip in form to bag a priceless win.

Ironically, Chile were, like Argentina, playing with a 3-3-1-3 formation but theirs was balanced, with Villarreal’s Matías Fernández revelling behind the irrepressible main striker, Humberto Suazo.  The formation is essentially 5-2-3 with attack-minded wing-backs and, unlike Argentina’s Gabriel Heinze, Chile’s former Liverpool player Mark González is a proper left wing-back.  They look like being on their way to the finals; there is now a five-point gulf between Argentina in fourth, the final automatic qualification spot, and Uruguay in fifth, which brings a play-off against a North American side.

Mind you, the race for fifth will be breathless, with Ecuador winning 2-1 in Peru to draw level with Uruguay on points, though they trail on goal difference.  Even Venezuela are only a point off the play-off spot, winning 1-0 away to Bolivia, who could not capitalize on any momentum gained from their drubbing of Argentina on 1 April.

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If Portugal have a chance of qualifying after all, who will be the high profile absentees next summer?  Mexico are in deep brown stuff in North America, losing 2-1 in El Salvador, of all places, on Saturday.  If Mexico finish fourth they will struggle against a decent side from South America in a play-off.

Finally, a conspiracy theory: Iran and North Korea are probably competing for third place in Asia Group 2.  North Korea will do well to get anything from their last match in Saudi Arabia and Iran’s final match is in South Korea, who are hardly likely to want their neighbours to travel with them to the World Cup.  Mm.

Time, then, to re-assess the Monday Miscellany prediction of who the 32 competing nations will be at 2010:

AFRICA: South Africa, Gabon, Tunisia, Zambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast
ASIA / OCEANIA: Australia, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran
EUROPE: Denmark, Switzerland, Slovakia, Germany, Spain, England, France, Italy, Holland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Republic Of Ireland
NORTH AMERICA: Costa Rica, USA, Mexico
SOUTH AMERICA: Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador