The Monday Miscellany – World Cup Special

When it was announced that FIFA were seeding the European World Cup play-offs, it was tempting to fear that most of the ties would be settled after one leg. Mercifully, that has not transpired.

Only France can feel remotely secure in their position, following their 1-0 win in Dublin thanks to a deflected Nicolas Anelka strike. Ireland have plenty of spirit but no creative quality through the centre; Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews simply did not worry the French defence in the way that Andy Reid, who remains ludicrously sidelined by the ever-cautious Giovanni Trapattoni, might.

Alas, there is little prospect of significant tactical change for the second leg from the Irish. For forty-five minutes they frightened the French and might have taken the lead on a couple of occasions but Raymond Domenech’s side, for all their faults, controlled the second period and deserved their albeit fortunate winner. It is hard to imagine Ireland winning at the Stade de France, though they could always exploit France’s weakness at defending set plays.

Things are less straightforward for Russia and Portugal. Guus Hiddink’s side appeared to be cruising in Moscow until Slovenia rallied towards the end and Necj Pecnik headed a late away goal in response to Diniyar Bilyaletdinov’s brace. At 2-1, and with the second leg in Maribor on Wednesday, it is not too fanciful to imagine Russia having real problems.

Indeed, they had Igor Akinfeev, the CSKA Moscow goalkeeper courted by Manchester Utd, to thank for keeping it to 2-1, saving from Slovenia defender Marko Suler when an equalizer looked nailed on in injury time. Slovenia are a deceptively dangerous attacking unit, as England discovered when they made such a game of their friendly at Wembley in September. Valter Birsa, their left winger, hits a mean free-kick and Russia’s defence, still populated by the sluggish Berezutski twins, must be on red alert in Maribor.

Portugal beat Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 in Lisbon but how they avoided conceding an away goal remains a mystery. After Bruno Alves headed the hosts into a first-half lead, Bosnia rallied in the second half. Edin Dzeko shot narrowly wide before, in another attack, his header bounced up onto the bar, with the rebound from Zlatan Muslimovic somehow diverted onto the post. Portugal, robbed of the menace of the injured Cristiano Ronaldo, are by no means home and dry.

Indeed, we should really question their right to be regarded as favourites. Surely, Dzeko is a more threatening striker than Liédson, Sporting Lisbon’s recently-naturalized Brazilian. Simão, Deco and Nani don’t really compare too well when up against Senijad Ibricic, Zvjezdan Misimovic and Sejad Salihovic, who form the attacking part of Bosnia’s midfield in an effective 3-2-3-2 formation. Nor do Portugal have a player on the bench as exciting as Miralem Pjanic, the Lyon playmaker who has taken over from Juninho Pernambucano as the free-kick king at the French club.

Greece 0 Ukraine 0, in the Athens Olympic Stadium, was every bit as thrilling as it sounds, though Liverpool defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos should have scored in injury time. We may now test the theory that 0-0 at home in the first leg is not a bad result. Will Ukraine live to rue their lack of an away goal? A score-draw in Donetsk is all that the Euro 2004 winners, still marshalled by German Otto Rehhagel, require to qualify.

The Greek public appeared wise to the likely tactical draw, as an attendance of 39,045 left the Olympic Stadium barely half full. Support has been a problem for Greece during the campaign, to the extent that they played their first two home qualifiers against Moldova and Switzerland in Olympiakos’s more compact Karaiskakis Stadium before playing Israel in Heraklion, the capital of Crete. The importance of their final two matches, against Latvia and Luxembourg, were supposed to bring the crowds back to the Olympic Stadium but only 18,981 and 13,932 came to the respective matches.

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One day, New Zealand might shake off decades of heartbreak and win the World Cup. Only at rugby union. It is hard to see what they will bring to the party, or if anything more would have been offered from Bahrain had they only not missed their second-half penalty in Wellington.

New Zealand Football were ecstatic about the level of demand for tickets for the play-off second leg at the capital’s Westpac Stadium; one official beamed as he reported that over 18,000 tickets had been sold in just five days. Hot cakes.

Still, at least New Zealand have one very good player in captain Ryan Nelsen, the Blackburn Rovers central defender who helped keep the Bahrainis at bay in a moderately frantic last half hour, though New Zealand should have sealed the win as Shane Smeltz went close twice in the closing minutes on the counter-attack.

The heroes of the day were Mark Paston, who saved Sayed Mohamed Adnan’s 51st-minute penalty, and the Green Army’s own Rory Fallon, who temporarily resembled Jan Koller when heading home a corner from former York City winger Leo Bertos in the last minute of the first half. Indeed, Fallon should have scored earlier only for his header to be brilliantly saved by Sayed Mohamed Jaffer.

Fallon is an improbable figure for such a sudden international profile, memorable as he is to this writer only for a rather feeble missed penalty for Barnsley against Blackpool in a 2002 FA Cup first round tie.

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The home nations had a rather disappointing day of friendlies, unless you’re Welsh, in which case it went quite well. The brilliant Aaron Ramsey tormenting Scotland’s bemused defence, though it should be allowed that Scotland’s defence could probably be beaten with a rolled-up newspaper.

Some optimism, then, for John Toshack’s seemingly permanently young side. No hope, though, for George Burley, who is set to be relieved of his duties by the SFA in the next few days. Scotland could be forgiven if they were just terrible players, but the lack of fight and effort was alarming.

The SFA will have seen in the Cardiff City Stadium a frightening glimpse of what the future might hold if the current slump in performances are not arrested. Wales, whose form has slumped alarmingly since the halcyon days of Mark Hughes, played in a half-empty stadium. That’s not a half-empty Millennium Stadium (capacity 74,500) but a half-empty Cardiff City Stadium (capacity 26,828). The previous evening, the Wales v Samoa rugby match got nearly 60,000 in the national stadium.

Scottish football is already in enough financial trouble without having to content with plummeting attendances at Hampden Park. Burley’s likely removal may simply be a desperate attempt to win back public support for the national team north of the border.

Oh, the England match? Bet you thought I’d forgotten. (I’d forgotten). There isn’t really much intelligence to glean from Saturday’s fixture in Qatar; the fact that the best international team in the world is capable of narrowly beating an England side short of most of its first choice players (and many of its second choices) is hardly extraordinary.

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The Really Really Really Big Game™, though, was Egypt v Algeria, which comes as part of a Buy One Get One Free offer. After Amr Zaki gave the hosts a lead in the first two minutes you might have thought qualification would be a formality but the second goal they needed to force a play-off didn’t come until the fifth minute of stoppage time, when Al-Ahly striker Emad ‘Michael Thomas’ Moteab headed past Lounès Gaouaoui. The two sides now have a one-off tie-break in Khartoum on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, Cameroon qualified with a routine 2-0 win away to the catatonic Moroccans, who once again perform like considerably less than the sum of their parts.

Nigeria’s qualification, though, was a small miracle. In stoppage time of their previous match, at home to Mozambique, they were goalless and heading for immediate elimination before Málaga forward Victor Obinna grabbed a late winner. On Saturday, they had to win in Kenya and hope that Tunisia dropped points away to Mozambique. At half-time they trailed, thanks to a Dennis Oliech goal but by the last quarter of an hour Obafemi Martins and Yakubu Aiyegbeni each scored to haul them onto top spot.

Disaster nearly stuck when Kenya equalized in the 79th minute but Martins, not quite fully fit, scrambled a winner a few minutes later. Almost simultaneously, Dário scored an improbable winner for Mozambique in Maputo. They may or may not have gum trees in Mozambique but the Tunisia football team were up one.

The turnaround ends a period of misery for Nigerian football, in which they failed to qualify for Germany ‘06 and performed poorly in the African Cup of Nations in 2008, exiting at the quarter final stage.