While the European Championship in Austria/Switzerland is currently taking much of the news here in Europe, there are still things happening in the rest of the football crazed world, not least of all, qualifiers for the coming world cup 2010 in South Africa.
In the South American qualifying group Paraguay has gone ahead of everyone else on top, after defeating the mighty Brazilians by 2-0, on goals by Roque Santa Cruz and Salvador Cabanas. At the same time, Argentina managed an uneasy 1-1 at home against Ecuador, to remain second in the qualifiers, and Colombia is third, after a tie with Peru.
With Brazil fourth, the match Argentina and Brazil next thursday will be another clash of giants between the two top ranked teams on FIFA's World Ranking.
In the African qualifying zone there were some very surprising results showing that some of the more "traditional" big teams will have difficulty qualifying. In group 5, World Cup 2006 surprises of Ghana lost to Gabon; they are still top of the group, but with Libya and Gabon tracing them in what could become very close indeed.
In group 8 Rwanda defeated Morocco, and is now topping their group, while Cameroun's stars only managed a 0-0 in Tanzania, but is still poised to win their group 1.
Another giant, Angola, lost 3-1 to Uganda in group 3 in a group where three teams (Angola, Uganda and Benin) are tied with 6 points at the top.
Finally, in the Asian qualifiers' group 2 Japan won 3-0 against Thailand, and is now poised for a clash against Bahrain to win the group. Also, poor Iraq, after not being allowed to play temporarily by FIFA, nevertheless managed to rise and win against China, and will hopefully continue to next round together with Australia by defeating Qatar in their last group 1 match (in the Asian qualifiers, as in the African, the top two teams go on to a second group stage).
The World Cup in South Africa is on its way!
No comments:
Post a Comment