Word Cup play-offs drawn

October 20, 2009

The play-offs for the final World Cup places for European teams were decided yesterday with a few interesting matches’ games on the cards.

Controversy was caused in the lead up to the draw yesterday with seeding being introduced in what would appear a blatant attempt to get the big countries to the tournament and not ha them knock each other out of the competition in qualifying.

The results of the draw were:

France v Republic of Ireland

Portugal v Bosnia

Russia v Slovenia

Greece v Ukraine

Even with the seeding the potential for shocks is definitely till there with France not certainties to beat Ireland. Ireland have had a lot of great results throughout the qualifying and could yet make the finals next year.

Portugal have not had a good qualifying run at all and looked like they were going to miss the play-offs all together however they got there but face a tough Bosnia side that has caused their own upsets in the qualification groups.

Slovenia has been one of the surprise teams throughout qualification and have performed well but they certainly go in the underdogs against the Russians who would probably have qualified top of the group had they not had a very strong German side in their group.

The fourth match between Greece and Ukraine is really anyone’s guess. Both teams have the quality to cause the other problems but they appear quite evenly matched.

There is definitely some scope for last minute qualification shocks but we just have to wait and see.

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