The qualification for the World Cup is over, and the 32 countries that will be at the World Cup in South Africa are ready.South America:Brazil: the five-time world champions have participated in all previous 18 World Cups.Paraguay: One of the strongest and most stable South American sides are participating in their seventh world cup, and fourth in a row. Click to continue reading...

The 13th FIFA U-17 World Cup yesterday ended in Nigeria with a very dusprising 1-0 victory for Switzerland, the debutants of the tournament, who with this win their first international title. The victory was no less surprising as they were playing the defending champions of Nigeria in front of a very hostile home-crowd of 60,000 in Abuja. Click to continue reading...

New Zealand and Nigeria qualified for the World Cup yesterday, but other countries also either made sure they are going to be in South Africa, or took steps to it.In Africa Cameroon finally qualified with a 2-0 away victory over Morocco, and are now the African nation that has participated in most World Cups. Click to continue reading...

After 0-0 in Bahrain, New Zealand had all the advantages to progress to their second World Cup ever. 35,000 spectators in Wellington were an all-time record for a football match in New Zealand, and they were not disappointed as New Zealand managed to pull a narrow 1-0 victory on a goal by the Plymouth Argyle striker Rory Fallon. Click to continue reading...

Nigeria have just qualified for the World Cup after two dramatic matches in Nairobi and Maputo.In Nairobi, Kenya was playing Nigeria. Nigeria was forced to win, and at the same time hope that Mozambique take points from Tunisia in Maputo. The Nigerians, who had never lost to Kenya before, were 1-0 down at half-time, while the score in Maputo was 0-0. Click to continue reading...

England and Argentina have one of the most intense rivalries in world football, surely the only classical cross-continental footballing rivalry. Being two of the most passionate footballing nations in the world, and much more closely associated than many know (indeed, the English brought football to Argentina in the 19th century! Click to continue reading...

The last entries for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa will be decided this week, and there are some very interesting encounters.In Europe, FIFA changed the rules on seeding teams shortly before the play-off draw, giving the "big" teams a better chance at qualifying. The power of money and politics, but hopefully the underdogs can manage some upset in some of the following European play-off Click to continue reading...

The World Cups have, especially in the start, been the complete dominance of South America and Europe. Therefore, throughout the 1950's and 1960's, the "rest of the world", that is, Asia, Africa and Australia had to play between them for one meager qualifying spot.For the 1966 World Cup in England, this "rest-of-the-world" spot went to the small and closed Communist dictatorship of North Corea. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool had to defeat Olympique Lyon away after losing 1-2 at home in the previous round. But last night the English team only managed a 1-1 draw, and with 4 points it is now almost impossible that Liverpool progresses to the next round: Livepool must win their remaining two matches and Fiorentina must not win any of their remaining two matches (of which the last one is between Liverpool and Click to continue reading...

Since 1958 Pelé had become known as the best player in the world, and there were great expectations to the Brazilian national team as the World Cup returned to South America, to Chile specifically.It was sadly one of the most vile tournaments in terms of fair play and bad refereeing, with some matches that will only go over to history for their violence, notably Yugoslavia-USSR and Chile-Italy. Click to continue reading...

Brazil didn't start the sixth World Cup in Sweden very well: on their first two matches they had defeated Austria 3-0 and tied 0-0 against England (this was the first goalless draw in a World Cup), and it came down to their last first round match where they were facing a strong USSR side that still had a chance at the quarterfinals. Click to continue reading...

I was in a pub in Århus, casually, and started watching the Premier League match between Sunderland and Liverpool. Not long into the match, saw one of the strangest goals I have seen: Glen Johnson shot on goal for Sunderland, and a beach ball that had been thrown onto the pitch got in the way of the ball, changing its trajectory into Liverpool's goal. Click to continue reading...

I lived in Ghana for many years, and it is with happy nostalgia that I have seen that the Ghana U20 team has won the 2009 U20 World in Egypt, by defeating Brazil in the final, 4-3 after penalty kicks! This is the first time ever an African team wins this tournament, and breaks eight years of South American dominance in the tournament, although Ghana was also in the final in 1993, losing to Brazil Click to continue reading...

A very confident Hungarian side ran on the pitch in Berne for the 1954 World Cup final in Berne, Switzerland: they had not lost a match in four years, and in the four previous matches to reach the final had scored a staggering 25 goals, among them, an 8-3 victory against the other finalists, West Germany, in the first round of the tournament. Click to continue reading...

Denmark's last match against Hungary was a quite pathetic 0-1 loss (in fact, the first world cup qualifying defeat in Copenhagen since 1981....), but didn't mean anything because of Denmark's 1-0 victory against Sweden last Saturday, that had already given the Danes their ticket to South Africa next year. Click to continue reading...