World Cup Qualifying Complete

November 19, 2009

Just over two years ago the draw for the qualifying tournament for the 2010 World Cup was conducted. Now it has come to an end and all 32 teams that will compete in South Africa are finalised.

The draw for the tournament proper will be done in two weeks and everyone is waiting to see what that will result in. Regardless of it, Spain and Brazil are going to be the favourites. The two are the best two teams in the world and it will be fascinating to see how far apart the draw keeps them.

Off the bat you can tell that South Africa’s group will be the weakest of the four. As the host, they are seeded and placed in Pot A along with the likes of Argentina, France, Germany, Italy, England and the aforementioned Spain and Brazil. There is clearly a gulf in standard with South Africa and the other seven sides. Soccer betting is going to be monitoring this closely.

Pot B contains the other eight European sides. Netherlands are here and should be in Pot A. So wherever Netherlands or for that matter Portugal end up will result in the much-loved Group of Death. Then again it will be evened out if they end up in South Africa’s group.

Pot C consists of the other four African and the other three South American teams. None of these teams will be a pushover and the most difficult would be Ghana or Ivory Coast.

In Pot D are the four Asian sides, the three CONCACAF teams and New Zealand from Oceania. The best case scenario for one of the top teams wanting to progess is either North Korea or New Zealand.

Having a look at who won’t be there and it’s a sorry tale. The fairytale run of Guus Hiddink is finally over after he couldn’t get Russia to the World Cup. They needed luck to get them to Euro 2008 and they did very well there so this one will really sting. They haven’t made it through to the knock-out round of the World Cup since 1986. It remains to be seen if Hiddink will hang around. No doubt he will have countless chequebooks from both clubs and countries put in front of him.

The Czech Republic will be trying to work out what went wrong with their lacklustre qualifying campaign. All four playoff losers will be licking their wounds and Ireland will be gutted to have gone out in such a controversial fashion. Egypt will be looking for revenge and Costa Rica will be ruing that last minute goal against the USA which put them into a playoff against Uruguay that they would lose.

David Wiseman writes for this blog. He also writes about harness betting.

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