CONCACAF First Round games

Bit of a summer break- i've been off on holiday. Kos, Greece. It's lovely. Don't rent the quad bikes. Stiches out soon. And there were plenty of great holiday destinations playing in the first round of the North American qualifiers.

Montserrat 3-8 Belize

Ah, our brave underdogs, Montserrat. Started the whole process off, with a 5-2 defeat in Trinidad, Montserrat's home game. It turned out quite fair actually, because Belize aparantly also can't host a game, this one being held in Honduras. Belize managed to sort out their politics, and gain a fairly comfortable progression with a 3-1 "home" victory. Hat trick hero of the first game McCauley scored again for Belize, as did Jaylee Hodgson for Montserrat, who got all three of their goals over the two legs. English born Jaylee plays for Loughborough Dynamo, and now has a better international scoring record than Pele. Probably gives an impression of the standard that he usually plies his trade in the Northern Premier League Division One South. Though they also have a bit of a superstar- Anthony Griffith of Port Vale. Still, he couldn't rally them to victory, and we must say a sad goodbye.

Anguilla 0-6 Dominican Republic

The Domincans won two nil away and four nil at home for a comfortable progression, although both games they were actually at home, aparantly Anguilla also lack a decent football pitch. As the Dominicans do have a population of 10 million to Anguilla's 13,000, the score is a little less impressive. Although aparantly they prefer baseball. Bizarre. Anguilla bought international appearances for the Gumbs cousins of Slough Town. They didn't make an impact, but probably enjoyed a few days in the sunny Carribean, and away from their charming new town.

US Virgin Islands 4-1 British Virgin Islands

Ouch. As if the world cup draw wasn't enough, now the Yanks' Virgin Islands are bashing ours up. 2-0 at their place and 2-1 at ours. As the US Virgin Islands had previously scored one goal in their five game world cup qualifying history, this was not our finest hour. Lets move on, my patriotic side is getting all upset.

Aruba 6-6 (4-5 on penalties) Saint Lucia

Ah, the only real close game in this set, and it was a bit of a thriller. Aruba won 4-2 in the first leg and looked in good shape. But Jamal Joseph played hero in Saint Lucia, matching the score of 4-2, giving a 6-6 extra time score, and some penalty shoot out drama. Nine players scored, Jelano Cruden of Aruba missed, and Saint Lucia were through.

Turks and Caicos Islands 0-10 Bahamas

The Turks and Caicos have only been playing FIFA football since 2006, and it seems they have a lot of improving to do before they are a match for a footballing powerhouse like the Bahamas. 0-4 away and 6-0 at home, with the slightly effemitely named Lesly St Fleur getting an impressive five goals in the later game.

And there goes the first round of games for the CONCACAF region. A few eliminations, but they'd probably rather be playing cricket anyway.

AFC First Round Games

Finally we are getting going with this- the first eight games of the Asian qualifying have been completed. And there were goals, goals, goals!

Malaysia 4-4 Chinese Taipai- Malaysia win on away goals

Malaysia, by the rankings the best team in this round, overcame TAIWAN (take that you Chinese imperial bastards) in a very tight encounter. They won 2-1 at home, but were beaten 3-2 away. Not quite enough, and Malaysia go through. Though judging by this, they won't get much further.

Bangladesh 3-0 Pakistan

Pakistan lived up to their low expectations by getting bashed up by Bangladesh, who are hardly a footballing powerhouse themselves. They lost 3-0 at home, and managed a 0-0 draw away, thus ending their non existant hopes, and not making me look stupid by slagging them off so much in the previous AFC post.

Cambodia 6-8 Laos

Classic local derby stuff from South East Asia here. The first leg was 1-0 at half time to the away underdogs Laos, but finished up 4-2 to the hosts, putting them in a strong position for the second leg. But Laos got ahead 2-0, before it finished 4-2 as well, forcing extra time. Laos scored twice to go through.

Sri Lanka 1-5 Phillipines

Another South Asian country much more focused on cricket, Sri Lanka did manage to stay in contention with a 1-1 draw at home, but were easily beaten 4-0 in the thriller in Manilla. Possibly an overexageration, but it was a good game for former Chelsea player Phil Younghusband (albeight he never played for the first team) who bagged two goals.

Afghanistan 1-3 Palestine

In a very dangerous sounding two legs, Palestine (anyone else not know they had a team?) came out on top, winning by two goals in Takjikstan (Afghanistan's "home" leg) and drawing one all at home (which actually was played at their home).

Vietnam 13-1 Macau

Comfortably the biggest victory of the round. Macau might be one of richest countries in the world, but they are not good at football. 6-0 at home and 7-1 away. Lê Công Vinh put himself comfortably at the top of the qualifiers current top scorers list by bagging seven of Vietnam's goals. They go on to face Qatar in the next round, which all football fans will be hoping they win, thus making FIFA's choice to let Qatar host the 2022 world cup look even more ridiculous than it already does.

Nepal 7-1 Timor-Leste

Little Timor-Leste managed to give themselves a chance for the second leg with a narrow 2-1 defeat away to Nepal, before being thrashed 5-0 at their own place. Ah well, always next time, and at least those of us following these qualifiers have now heard of you.

Mongolia 1-2 Myanmar

An unusually low scoring and tight affair from this round to wrap things up. The Mongolians won one nil at their place, but the return in Burma (as we should really call it because the government are bad guys) went two nil the other way.

So we have our eight first round winners, who will join twenty-two higher ranked sides in another round of home and aways to see who progresses into the third round. New sides entering include the strongest muslim countries; Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq all having some degree of success, as well as half the worlds population in the form of India and China. The draw in full is at the side of the blog, consisting of a colourful mix of great holiday destinations, war zones and countries half the west have never heard of.

History of Qualification- 1934

Belize still appear to be the first team heading out of this world cup. In six days time the Asian section kicks off, but for now it is time for some more world cup qualifying history!

And this time we have some actual qualifiers! The first world cup was such a success that all the big boys wanted a go this time, like fascist Italy, fascist Spain and the Germans, playing proudly under the swastika. And even the Italians were made to qualify, for their own world cup. The home nations were still above such rubbish, and Uruguay were stropping about people not turning up to their tournament, so didn't even try to defend their crown.

Group 1 pitted Sweden against Estonia and Lithuania. Sweden beat both these sides, so they didn't bother playing each other, as they were already out. Seems like bad etiquette to me.

Group 2 was Spain v Portugal, home and away. Not really a group that, is it? In any case, Spain won 9-0 at home and 2-1 away to comfortably qualify. At least the Portugese were good enough to play the reverse fixture after the thumping, as we'll see a lot of teams didn't bother.

Group 3 was Italy v Greece. Italy won 4-0 at home and Greece, a bit like a petulant FIFA player on a computer game, refused to play their scheduled home match, and Italy qulaified for their own world cup, which is probably a good thing.

Group 4 had Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. Two went through from this one, and Hungary beat Bulgaria twice, Austria beat them one. Bulgaria then just gave up, so Hungary and Austria qualfied.

Group 5 was Czechoslavakia v Poland. Poland showed an astonishing willingness to give up after quitting when they lost 2-1 at home in the first fixture, and refused to play the return. Come on lads, 2-1 to turn over is hardly Mount fucking Everest, is it?

Group 6 contained Switzerland, Romania and Yugoslavia. Shockingly, they actually played all their matches! Two were to qualify. First Yugoslavia drew with Switzerland. The real drama came in the next match at the Wankdorf Stadium (I had to mention the stadium name there. It is probably my favourite in the world). Switzerland hosted a 2-2 draw with Romania, but those cheeky Romanians had tried to sneak on an ineligable player, so FIFA gave the Swiss a 2-0 win. Romania thus had to beat the Yugoslavs in the last match to qualify, and they did! 2-1, so they qualified with the Swiss.

Group 7 contained Netherlands, Belgium and the first British Isles entrant, the Irish Free State. And they were so close to qualifying- after a 4-4 draw with Belgium, they lose 5-2 to the Netherlands. Belgium then only lost 4-2 to the Dutch, so sneaked through to the cup with them on goal average (the stupid complicated system they used until they realised goal difference was much simpler and better).

Group 8 was two to qualify from France, ze Germans, and Luxembourg. Quite convenient for the first two, who beat the minnows 9-1 (Germany) and 6-1 (France) to both qualify. Again, the needless last match wasn't played, and both had secured a very easy qualification.

It was even easier for the South Americans, in Groups 9 and 10. The Brazilians had Peru and Argentina had Chile, but both of the later sides pulled out.

In Group 11, the North Americans made it a bit more complicated. Round one had Cuba playing Haiti three times in a week, all away from home. They won all three. Which meant the next month, for Round two, they had to play Mexico three times away over two weeks. There were all sorts of revolutions going on in Cuba at the time, so the players probably enjoyed these holidays. This time, however, they lost all three, which meant Mexico got to play the USA in the final. USA didn't apply to compete in time. Rather than not let them play, which would seem fair, FIFA instead scheduled a game in Rome three days before the world cup started- it had to be there, because the boat trip was 15 days. The Yanks won 4-2 and qualified, and the Mexicans got to enjoy a month long round trip because of the late American application, which i'm sure they were delighted about.

Group 12 was supposed to have three teams, but Turkey quit, meaning it was just a home and away between Egypt and a Palestine side that apparantly was just Jewish and British footbalers. In two nice and politically charged matches, Egypt comfortably came through to qualify.

And that was that, the first world cup qualfiers were over, and the teams were ready for the straight knock out tournament in Italy. All the non-Europeans went out in Round one, so only got to play one match. Possibly not worth the two weeks there and back across the Atlantic, espeically for the Americans, who lost 7-1 to hosts Italy. Egypt lost 4-2 to Hungary, and I hope they enjoyed it because they didn't get another go at a world cup until 1990. Mussolini got his trophy, so everyone saw how great fascism was.

The world cup qualifiers have come a long way. Instead of a home and away between Egypt and a mix of Jews and British ex-Pats, Asian qualifying for 2014 will consist of many games, and it starts in five days time. There are 42 teams involved, and sixteen of them will be squaring up. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Vietnam will be some of those involved. Can't wait!

History of Qualification- 1930

With Belize's future still looking very shakey (its even caught the bbc's attention- http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13830127.stm ) we are left with a bit of a break before qualifying starts for real. I will fill this, and future gaps by reviewing the previous world cup qualifying campaigns.

And so to the first, 1930. Only there wasn't a qualification campaign. The first world cup didn't quite have the draw of the current one, so the likes of Montserrat, American Samoa and Scotland weren't interested in competing. It was supposed to be by "invitation of the hosts", Uruguay, but it turned out to be more like "who can be pursuaded to turn up". Certainly not the Home Nations, who were above such things- not members of FIFA, but eventually got a letter when the numbers were looking poor, which was snootily refused. Those from the Americas were more keen- Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and the United States all accepted. This was an espeically good idea for the likes of Bolivia, who have only qualified for two more world cups since, and the USA, who got a nice semi final appearance to their name.

Sadly, response was a bit worse from Europe. Exactly zero teams accepted by the deadline- to be fair, it meant a fifteen day boat trip there and back, and a possibility of losing their jobs for the amateur players. A few strings were pulled- Jules Rimet himself managed to get the French to go, and the FIFA Vice-President, from Belgium, got them involved. Even more impressive was that King Carol the Second of Romania decided to make sure they were involved. Some people say he even was involved in coaching the team. The nutter. They all got on a boat together and sailed off to Uruguay, picking up the Brazilians on the way, which sounds quite sweet really, everyone having fun together, sailing across the Atlantic. Yugoslavia were miserable and went on their own.

And that's about it. A grand total of 13 teams entered the first world cup. Romania only had two games, won one and went out. Probably not worth King Carol's efforts, or the happy fun multi-national boat ride. And when it was all over, Uruguay were the first World Cup champions, but were so pissed off with most of the Europeans not entering that they had a twenty year strop from world cup football. Ok, that might have been extended because of World War Two a bit, but it was still two world cups. Get over it.

Well that's the story of the qualification for the first world cup- not a bad story considering there wasn't any. Come back soon for the first actual world cup qualification, 1934! It involves Luxembourg, Cuba and Palestine! And of course any breaking news on this Belize crisis.

Crisis for Belize!

Well we are only one game into qualifying, and the drama is already starting. After the glory of their opening 5-2 win against Montserrat, Belize have now been suspended by FIFA because of "severe governmental interference". It seems they don't want to provide police for this game. Unless they can revoke this suspension by July the 10th, they will be out of the world cup, and Montserrat will indeed get the unlikely progression I mentioned in the opening post of this blog.

I will keep this situation under close observation. But we could be seeing heartbreak for the likes of this world cup campaign's first hat trick hero, Deon McCaulay, and an unlikely chance of progression for plucky Montserrat, without but a football stadium.

Background OFC

The other qualifiers that start in the non too distant future are those in Oceania. The OFC don't really have much to do these days, without Australia they are left with a few obscure island nations with a few people on them, who would rather play rugby anyway. They don't even have to run most of their own qualifiers, these will be part of the 2011 Pacific Games. That means those of us following the World Cup qualfiers will be amongst the only people outside the islands who are aware of the Pacific games. Even New Zealand don't bother with these things. They get a bye into the final round of qualifiers, a group where they will be joined by the finalists and third place winner of the Pacific Games, which will be entered by-

* American Samoa
* Cook Islands
* Fiji
* New Caledonia
* Papua New Guinea
* Samoa
* Solomon Islands
* Tahiti
* Tonga
* Vanuatu

American Samoa are a notable name, having lost 31-0 to the Aussies a few years ago, before they realised they were actually Asian. The Pacific games football will actually have two more teams in it than that- Kiribati and Tuvalu, but they aren't FIFA members, so can't qualify into the final draw. I don't know how you can fail to be FIFA members. I mean American Samoa managed it. Still, three of those will join, and nearly certainly lose to, New Zealand in the final stage. Look out for the relative giants of Fiji and new Caledonia.

So then you have a final group, made up of New Zealand and three other sides. And while it might seem a bit embarrassing to have New Zealand as your regional giants, they did leave the last World Cup as the only undeafeated side. And a couple of their players are pretty good, like Ryan Nelsen and, um, others.

But winning this group only gets a play off match with a team, randomly either from Asia, North America or South America.

So will New Zealand continue their invincible world cup form? Will anyone even be reporting from the 2011 Pacific Games? Will Ryan Nelson be slightly embarrassed by the qualify of the other players around? It'll all be reported right here!

Background AFC

Asian qualification starts soon, less than two weeks in fact! The people of the various nations cannot wait. Possibly. In a region that includes Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan and Palestine (but not Israel, they suprisingly decided they'd rather play in Europe), there's always plenty of fun political tension behind matches.

Asia has a pretty set elite-

1. Japan
2. South Korea
3. Australia
4. North Korea
5. Bahrain

These teams go straight into the third round of qualifying. Lots of fun if the Korea's draw each other like last time. Australia also have got in there depite very clearly not being in Asia, as any eight year old can tell you. Probably bribed someone. Probably that corrupt bastard Blatter, who just got re-elected FIFA President, unopposed, if you don't follow such things. No matter what anyone says about North Korea, they aren't a bad side.

Going into the second round of qualifying we have-

6. Saudi Arabia
7. Iran
8. Qatar
9. Uzbekistan
10. United Arab Emirates
11. Syria
12. Oman
13. Jordan
14. Iraq
15. Singapore
16. China PR
17. Kuwait
18. Thailand
19. Turkmenistan
20. Lebanon
21. Yemen
22. Tajikistan
23. Hong Kong
24. Indonesia
25. Kyrgyzstan
26. Maldives
27. India

Probably about half the worlds population in there, considering you've China and India. Note than India's 1.2 billion people can only just get a team together good enough for this section. Last time round they lost their two legger 6-3 to Lebanon. The Chinese are only slightly better with an even more scary population.

Like in North America, Asia has lots of teams that aren't any good. Unlike North America, this includes many pretty massive countries. The first round of qualifiers takes place between-

28. Malaysia
29. Afghanistan
29. Cambodia
31. Nepal
32. Bangladesh
33. Sri Lanka
33. Vietnam
35. Mongolia
36. Pakistan
37. Palestine
38. Timor-Leste
39. Macau
40. Chinese Taipei
40. Myanmar
42. Philippines
42. Laos

Pretty much a who's who of American bombing targets (I will try to keep political references to a minimum in this blog). Some of these countries are unbelievably bad. Sure, cricket might be the number one sport in Pakistan, but with 170 million people, you'd think they could field a half decent side. Last time around they lost 7-0, at home, to Iraq! Still maybe not quite as bad as India, considering size, but still, get a grip guys.

I will be reporting from this region soon. Will Pakistan, India and China do anywhere near as well as they should? Will Japan and South Korea easily qualify again? Will Americans get scared at all the teams with "-stan" in their name? Only place to find out is right here!