World Cup Qualifying is completed is completed. I've updated the 2010 World Cup Eliminations Timeline, which tells you exactly which date each team was eliminated and in what order. That won't require another update until June.
But the real exciting news is that with all the qualifiers completed, we can now focus on the World Cup seeds and the draw. Click to continue reading...

Yesterday ended the long and difficult road that is World Cup qualifying. The 32-team field is set and while we won't know until next month what the groups are it does present a good time to discuss each team and how they got there.

(Note: I hope this is a start of many more World Cup posts going into next year.

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Ireland aren't going! Neither is Gus Hiddink.
Could we bring him back....too late I guess!
Ronaldo should be there..if fit...but not the Ukraine's or Egyptians.
Still in the modern world if your country doesn't make it (Ireland) you can support the country you grew up in (England) the country you live in and love (Socceroos) or the countries you have visited, (NZ, USA, Germany, Japan, France, Greece, Italy etc etc,) or countries you'd like to see do well. Click to continue reading...

Thierry Henry is my favorite player of all time. He has had so many magical moments on the pitch that it is hard for me to list them all. That is what makes this all the more painful. Yes, Ireland should have taken their chances. Yes, this will renew the call for instant replay.

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Six teams qualified for next year's World Cup in South Africa today, finalizing the field that will compete in the first World Cup in African soil.

France, Slovenia, Uruguay, Portugal, Greece and Algeria advanced to the finals ending the dreams of Ireland, Russia, Costa Rica, Ukraine and Egypt in the process.

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Vuvuzelas - Noisy Plastic Trumpets in All Colours

According to bbc news Motoaki Inukai, the president of the Japan Football Association (JFA), wants the noisy vuvuzela trumpet to be banned from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Noisy Plastic Trumpet!

And to add insult to this sign of cultural intolerance, when asked for his thoughts on the subject after Saturday's stalemate, Japan coach Takeshi Okada responded dryly: "Perhaps if they play good football (the fans) will be quiet and watch.

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Three more countries are going to South Africa!!!Cameroon, Nigeria, and New Zealand have booked their tickets to the 2010 World Cup. Nigeria and Cameroon have won their respective groups in the African qualifiers while New Zealand beat Bahrain in the 2nd leg of their playoff match.Results from the 1st leg playoff matches:Costa Rica 0 – 1 UruguayIreland 0 – 1 FrancePortugal 1 – 0 BosniaGreece 0 –

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I am loving this Adidas new World Cup uniform release craziness. It's lovely to see that they are making all uniforms very unique. Trend watch: uniforms are getting more tight... nice!!! Here are Spain, South Africa and Russia's new kits:

Spain new kit: nice, nice.

Russia new kit: awesome.

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Well that's the Bafana Bafana's 16th new jersey in 11 years and let's hope it is the lucky strip that will take the team past the opening round of the 2010 World Cup.

New Bafana Bafana Jersey

According to Kickoff, "the New Bafana Bafana kit is not much different from the current one, other than it being a whole lot sleeker and bearing a small South African flag, it was the one chosen from 21 alternatives by the Bafana players and technical team.

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I love this time of year. Teams start showing off their new kits and the World Cup spirit starts entering our hearts! Here are the new uniforms for Germany, Japan and Mexico (Adidas is going strong on releasing the new kits huh?).

Germany's New Kit: well done.

Japan's New Kit: I want.

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Now that Argentina has finally secured a spot in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, they can present the new uniform to be used next year. The new kit is very loyal to past Argentinian shirts and does a great job of keeping the pajama feel

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Today Raymond Domenech presented France's new kit to be used at the World Cup in 2010. Not my favorite one to be honest. What do you think?

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This week's QOTW is Fabio Capello talking about his first training session with the England Squad, the Italian manager has guided England to qualification, and he will most probably guide them through South Africa 2010.

"I remember the first training session and I was surprised because the players were really good,"

- Fabio Capello
A bit of humor for this week's QOTW, Capello was very surprised because he thought that because England didn't make it the the 2008 Euro's, the players would not be of high quality. Click to continue reading...

People living in poverty near Soccer City stadium outside Johannesburg battle police during anti-World Cup protests. Local residents demand houses rather than world-class stadiums.
Recommended reading: Ashwin Desai's The Poors and this article.

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My obsession with Moses Mabhida Stadium has taken me and my camera there in all kinds of weather yesterday the weather was grey and every now and they it was drizzling, but Durban's 2010 World Cup Stadium still took my breath away, like it does, every time I look at it through my lens.

People's Park

I first jumped out of the car on the bridge that crosses highway to take some pics across the People's Park with the oval walking track that is being constructed- they have cleared all that rubbish and railway yard stuff, and the actual track is taking shake in front of the stadium in the Kings Park Sporting Precinct.

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Ireland v France: What ever happened to the "luck of the Irish"?
Portugal v Bosnia-Herzegovina: Corporate sponsors breathe huge sigh of relief Ronaldo is headed to South Africa.
Greece v Ukraine: Mediterraneans in the steppes in mid-November?

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Portugal will be seeded second for Monday's draw in what will determine the European zones last four spots in the 2010 World Cup.Portugal now sit 10th in the FIFA World Rankings. The seeding for Mondays draw is:1- France2- Portugal3- Russia4- Greece5- Ukraine6- Ireland7- Bosnia-Herzegovina8- SloveniaThese seedings will keep the top four teams away from each other in the knockout stage, so Click to continue reading...

There still 9 spots left for the World Cup. But one thing is for sure: 32 is not enough for the number of cool nations around. We are still months away from the World Cup, but here are nations that we already miss. And the reason we miss them? Some of them,at some point in some edition of the tournament, played nice football.

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1) The 2010 seeding formula. Using the previous formula (from 2006), it appears that Portugal's resurgence may see them get seeded after all at the expense of France. They were always in good shape as long as they managed to qualify, and that looks very likely now. The same eight teams have been in the running ever since July 2006, so one good team is going to get let out no matter what. Click to continue reading...

The Qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup are over, except for the playoff games which will determine the last batch of teams that will travel to South Africa. Here is a breakdown of the qualified teams, and the teams that will fight for a spot in the playoffs.




Europe


Qualified teams: Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Slovakia, Switzerland, England, Italy, Serbia, Spain
Playoff teams: Portugal, Greece, Slovenia, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine, France, Republic of Ireland
Many big teams had difficulty in Europe, Portugal and Sweden struggled, and eventually Portugal prevailed, leaving Sweden and Ibrahimovic out of the 2010 World Cup. Click to continue reading...

.Saw this and couldnt resist posting! England played their final 2010 World Cup qualifying match last night, beating Belarus 3 – 0. England finished top of Group 6, scoring an impressive 34 goals over the 10 games, which was the most goals scored by any team in European qualifying. We're celebrating at Kitbag. Click to continue reading...

Argentina's 1-0 win in Montevideo ended her qualification telenovela. El Pibe's charges earned their ticket to South Africa on the sacred ground of Centenario stadium, where Uruguay defeated Argentina in the inaugural World Cup final in 1930. So Maradona, with all his contradictions and flaws, got the job done.

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And so it begins.A minor hiccup away to Ukraine apart (doesn't really count - nobody saw it), England have successfully negotiated their way to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup.Scotland, as we are so painfully aware, will not be joining them.So what can we look forward to now? Wall to wall coverage in the "British" media? Click to continue reading...

In another tense evening of World Cup qualifiers across the globe, Switzerland and Slovakia qualified from the European zone for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Switzerland played out a nervous 0-0 home draw with 10-man Israel and Slovakia held on for a 1-0 win in Poland.
Portugal, Greece, Slovenia and Ukraine took the remaining play off spots. Click to continue reading...

This week's Quote of the Week comes with some bad news; Charlie Davies, USA International striker, was in a car accident and received serious injuries. While this news is bad, there is worse, he was in the car with two other people, one of which died. Ashley J. Roberta, 22, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, the only details on the third person, who was also the driver, are it is a female. Click to continue reading...

With less than 250 days left to the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, the qualifying rounds are coming to an end in exciting matches that are determining who will come to South Africa next year and take their place in the Top 32 soccer teams in the world. This week will see the last of the 2010 qualifying games before the play-offs take place.

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So I woke up Sunday morning after this weird dream. Something about the U.S. national team beating Honduras 3-2 mixed with me being chased by Carlo Costly and Carlos Pavon in something straight out of the Michael Jackson 'Thriller' video. Odd. So odd I decided it was worth breaking my 10-month old self-imposed ban from Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Click to continue reading...

A brief summary of each Bolton Wanderers player who has been on international duty this weekend.

England U21 6 – 3 Macedonia U21

Fabrice Muamba came on for Peterborough United's Danny Rose with 20 minutes to go. Unfortunately Muamba's most notable contribution seems to be that he may have injured Micah Richards when he collided with the Manchester City defender.

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Yesterday's impressive three-nil victory by Portugal over Hungary puts Carlos Queiroz's just one game away from qualifying for a play-off place in their quest to go to the 2010 World Cup. England, meanwhile, suffered a 1-0 loss versus Ukraine in a game that meant much more for England's opponents.

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Once again, it's that time of the calendar. I expect the US to take care of business, so I'll be looking at how the other matches will affect us.
If you haven't heard, the big news is that Sepp Blatter announced a week ago that teams will be seeded in UEFA's World Cup qualifying playoffs. The eight playoff teams will be split into two pots based on their FIFA ranking. Click to continue reading...

Having already qualified for the 2010 World Cup, Australia has a friendly against the Netherlands this weekend. The two sides played before the last World Cup and have built up a healthy rivalry. This has been boosted by the heavy influx of Dutch coaches into Australian football. The Dutch ... Click to continue reading...

Journalist Cosme Rimolli reports in his blog that before going to South Africa, the team headed by Dunga will do its preparation in Lubango, city 676 km from Luanda (in the picture).

The information was disclosed in an interview with Tsambo Makaba, owner of the company who is bridging CBF and Angola's government in the negotiations.

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He just doesn't know that his idea already has a name Controversial FIFA vice-president Jack Warner - most famous for being called a 'clown' by Roy Keane - says players who feign injury should be made to go to a sin-bin for five or 10 minutes. Well, he doesn't actually say that because we suspect he [. Click to continue reading...

Just in time for the 2010 World Cup the Puma phone. The Puma phone will be launched to celebrate 2010's Football World Cup held in South Africa and reflects the "DNA of the Puma brand"

Puma and Sagem Wireless

Puma and Sagem Wireless have signed a license agreement to launch this Puma mobile phone in the second quarter of 2010.

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On the subject of obsessive fans I was speaking to somebody last night who was determined that he was going to make the trip to Japan to watch Scotland next weekend. I told him I thought he was mad. Most of the players, I said, don't want to go.No surprise then that Monday morning kicked off with Danny Fox, Robert Snodgrass, Kevin Thomson and Garry O'Connor withdrawing and a major question mark Click to continue reading...