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.