The World Cup winners in 1930 and 1950 became the last team to qualify for South Africa 2010 thanks to a draw with Costa Rica at the Centenario in Montevideo. Substitute Sebastian Abreu - who plays for Aris Salonika in Greece -Â put the hosts ahead 70 minutes but Costa Rica equalised when Deportivo Saprissa's Walter Centeno scored four minutes later.

The original headline for this piece was going to be '...And Then There Was One' as in there's only one place left in the finals: congratulations to Algeria, France, Greece, Portugal and Slovenia, all of whom have qualified before.

A first galf goal by Dimitris Salpingidis of Panathinaikos ensures Euro 2004 winners Greece qualify for South Africa last appearance was in 1994, you may remember (or chose not to)Â the face Sr. Maradona pulled when he scored his last goal in the World Cup finals against them.

The Desert Foxes (not making this up either) beat Egypt 1-0 with a first half goal from Anthar Yahia of Germany's VfL Bochum. Last appeared in the finals in Mexico 86, where they drew with Northern Ireland but lost to Spain and Brazil.

As a result of their dramatic 2-0 win on Saturday (the crucial second goal was scored in injury time), Egypt will meet Algeria for a third time on Wednesday in Sudan: whoever wins goes to South Africa. To describe this game as 'a local rivalry' is an understatement: the Algerian team bus was attacked at the weekend and both sides ending up blaming each other the Algerians blamed Egyptians who had been wound up by satellite TV broadcasts (insert Fox News joke here), the Egyptians claimed that it was arranged by local Algerians to make them look bad.

Uruguay won 1-0 in Costa Rica early this morning, arguably giving them a decent advantage for the return leg on Wednesday. Costa Rica were down to ten men for the last 40 minutes or so after Randall Azofeifa was dismissed, but the damage had already been done by Sao Paulo's Diego Lugano who scored after 21 minutes.

New Zealand, Nigeria and Cameroon all joined the list of qualifiers today, whilst Russia, France and Portugal all won the first legs of their UEFA region playoff games. The only stalemate was the goalless draw in Athens between Greece and Ukraine; Costa Rica play Uruguay in the first leg of their playoff at 02:00 GMT on Sunday so we'll have news of what happened in that one bright and early tomorrow morning.

Ahead of the Brazil game this afternoon we thought we'd post some videos of Brazil games gone by. Even though it's just a friendly, it's a biggie..it's Brazil!

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

Sad news from Germany this evening: goalkeeper Robert Enke of Hannover 96 and Germany committed suicide by diving under a train in the town of Neustadt am Rübenberge near Hannover. He was 32 years old, had won eight caps for Germany and would have been a strong contender for one of the goalkeeping positions in the German squad for the finals: he leaves behind a wife and an adopted eight month old daughter.

It's only just been created but 11 Lions now has a Facebook page. If you're part of the Facebook community, log in and search for 11lions.co.uk and you'll find us; I'm heading over there now to add some more stuff.

Here's the squad for the game on Saturday (ITV, 4:15pm):

Goalkeepers: Ben Foster, Robert Green & Joe Hart

Defenders: Wayne Bridge, Wes Brown, Gary Cahill, Glen Johnson, Joeleon Lescott, John Terry, Matt Upson & Steven Warnock

Midfielders: Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Tom Huddlestone, Jermaine Jenas, Frank Lampard, James Milner, Shaun-Wright Philips & Ashley Young

Forwards: Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe & Wayne Rooney

Missing: Ashley Cole (fractured leg, will apparently miss a few weeks), Carlton Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard (who - despite being supposedly injured - started on the bench at Anfield before being used as a sub v Birmingham this evening), Emile Heskey, David James and Aaron Lennon.

It's early November and we're still another seventh months until the tournament starts but I must admit that the injuries to Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard are beginning to worry me. According to Radio 5, Gerrard hasn't trained for two weeks and Ferdinand's overall fitness this season may have contributed to some of his indifferent performances when he has appeared for Manchester United.

Has to be a quick one this weekend due to the imminent arrival of most of wife's family for lunch, then I'm straight off to a game in the Championship. Last weekend I managed to watch no football whatsoever due to a family gathering and a wedding ('Likely Lads' moment: I was the guest with the mobile phone looking at score updates from Liverpool/Man UÂ during the speeches), so I'm looking forward to this weekend, especially Ajax v Feyenoord tomorrow lunchtime (ESPN)

It's about an hour or so to go before the lunchtime game: Arsenal v Spurs (12:45pm, Sky Sports 1) looks a tasty one, Arsenal have won all four of their home league games this season and Spurs have a decent away record; the rest of today's slate is notable for the players that are missing.

After a hectic weekend in European competition which didn't go particularly well for some of the Premiership teams, we're back to the bread and butter (or should that be the champagne and caviar) stuff. No doubt about this weekend's biggest game: Liverpool v Manchester United on Sunday.