With 607 days until the opening of the 2010 World Cup South Africa, African Cup qualifying is heading to its final stage.
20 countries advanced into the final round of African qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup after an eventful weekend.
Along with the perennial crop of heavyweights, including nine previous Cup participants, the likes of Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Sudan also progressed, indication of the constantly shifting power balance on the continent.

The draw for the final round of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations took place today in Zurich, Switzerland.
So what happened?
African champions Egypt were handed what many would consider to be the best of the five group draws.

The Egyptians will face Algeria, Zambia and Rwanda in Group C as they attempt to reach their third World Cup finals.

Interesting article from the Bangkok Post about how confusing the 2010 African World Cup qualifiers are. As they put it, 'FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) are on course to score an own goal' with their qualifier rules.
Basically, there's a situation where South Africa may have to lose or draw to make it to the next round (weird, I know.

President of US Soccer Sunil Gulati announced that the US men will face a top 5 FIFA ranked team June 8th in the Northwest. Although he did not hint at the team, I think I have a good guess.
The current top 5 are Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Spain and Germany. Since all three European teams qualified for Euro 2008, which starts on 7 June, it is pretty safe to rule them out, which leaves the two South American powerhouses.

The two groups have been drawn for Asia's final round of World Cup Qualification. Each group has five teams with the top two from each group advancing to South Africa. The third place teams in the groups will meet in a two-legged playoff with the winner playing the champion of Oceania.
Here are the two groups:
Group A
Australia
Japan
Bahrain
Uzbekistan
Qatar
Group B
South Korea
Iran
Saudi Arabia
North Korea
UAE
Although both groups have their difficulties, it looks to me like Group B is the tougher one since three of the teams made it to Germany in 2006 (S Korea, Iran & Saudi Arabia), plus North Korea is always capable of a surprise.

A couple days slimming his roster down to 12, it looks like US coach Bob Bradley is about to fatten things up with the addition of a bunch of MLSers.
Various reports have Bradley calling Drew Moor (FC Dallas), Chris Seitz (Real Salt Lake), John Thorrington (Chicago Fire), Chris Rolfe (Chicago Fire) and Chad Barrett (Chicago Fire).

US vs. Barbados
5p ET/2p PT
TV: ESPN2
Internet: ESPN360
Text call: Matchtracker
The US is less then an hour away from starting their long road to South Africa and Bob Bradley has released his lineup. Needless to say, there are a couple surprises. First of all, Guzan will start in goal instead of Tim Howard.

US 8-0 Barbados
Anyway you look at this, it was a great way for the US to start their World Cup run. This was the expected result and the team lived up to it, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. With that in mind, here are the player grades:
Starting XI
Brad Guzan (GK) - What a boring way to up your international appearance numbers.

US coach Bob Bradley has released 10 players from camp ahead of their second leg match against Barbados. Most of the players are MLS based, so this is not much of a surprise, however I kind of thought he would keep Guzan around in case Howard is still having back issues (plus if Guzan still wants to move to England, he needs more international caps).

FIFA has denied Iraq's appeal to disqualify Qatar from World Cup Qualifying even though it admits Qatar did not play by the rules.
This Sunday saw Qatar beat Iraq 1-0 to advance to the final round of Asian WCQ, however one of their players was not eligible to play for Qatar.
Marcio Passos De Albuquerque, know as Emerson, was born in Brazil and represented Brazil at youth level, thus he was ineligible.

Fifa has ruled that the Dominican Republic, U.S. Virgin Islands, Montserrat and Surinam cannot host World Cup qualifiers because their stadiums do not meet the organizations standards.
All four of these teams were due to take part in home-home series in the first round of qualifying, however their series will no consist of just one game with the winner advancing to the second round.

The long road that should take the US men to South Africa begins June 15 at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, when the team hosts either Barbados or Dominica in the first leg of their series. The game kicks off at 5pm ET/2pm PT. Oddly enough, this is the first World Cup qualifier held in Carson.

The second leg of Concacaf World Cup Qualifying swings into full gear this weekend as 24 teams look to advance to the first group phase. Although there are strong favorites in just about every one of these contests, the constant possibility of an upset will be present. Who knows, an early surprise goal or red card could kill a team's dream.

US 1-0 Barbados
In a game that saw the favorites look tired and even more defensive minded then normal, the underdogs had their chance to run the game. But unlike the Italy-Spain Euro match, the US was able to see their opposition out of the competition.
Yesterday's game was a flashback for me as right from the opening moments, it reminded me of some late-80's games due to the horrible video production.

Sounds like it was a ho-hum day for African World Cup/Cup of Nations qualifying, save for Malawi's 8-0 destruction of Djibouti.
There were no major surprises in the afternoon's eight games, with continental powerhouses Cameroon and Togo winning their respective engagements to take early leads in their groups.

As much fun as it is to only focus on the great show the US put on yesterday, there were ten other Concacaf Qualifiers over the weekend. So how did they turn out? Most of them went as expected, but there were a couple shocks.
Trinidad and Tobago 1-2 Bermuda - T&T get shocked at home by Bermuda.

USA vs. Barbados
Sunday - 2:55p ET/11:55a PT
TV: ESPN Classic & Galavision (Spanish)
Bob Bradley has released his 18-man roster for the second leg of the US-Barbados World Cup Qualifier. With the US up 8-0, the starting lineup is likely to include a number of younger players.

Ali Karimi, formerly of Bayern Munich and one of Asia's top players, was suspended from the Iranian national team in mid-May after criticizing the Iranian Football Federation (IFF). With the team struggling to qualify for the 2010 World Cup, however, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a big soccer fan in addition to being a global firebrand, intervened and got the IFF to lift the suspension.

With Europe getting their World Cup qualification schedule under way, I thought it'd be fitting to see where Africa is in their drive to South Africa. Remember, the Africans started their Cup qualification months ago. 
So how fares Africa? 
Apart from Nigeria who have already booked their place into the next stage out of Group 4, the qualifiers remain very contested with many surprises expected this weekend.

Iraq snuck past Australia 1-0 in Asian World Cup qualifying on Saturday, with the difference being a long-range beauty by Emad Mohammed.

With the final stages of the 2nd round of African World Cup qualifying upon up this weekend, here's a nice article from ESPN's Jon Carter about this weekend's games.
Click the link for the full article ... below's a free preview ...

African teams have raised the bar at the World Cup in recent tournaments and with Ghana impressing in Germany in 2006 and Senegal having made the quarter-finals in 2002, the expectations of the continent are high.

John Duerden at the Guardian has written a very interesting piece about Australia's two-and-a-half-year marriage with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
A key quote:
"The couple may not be in love but have much to offer each other. The AFC got a high-profile, wealthy and professional member, and, as Nan Yong hinted, protection against any future attempts to reduce Asia's coveted four ½ spots at the World Cup.

This is just beyond crazy ...
According to South Africa's Football365 website, fans wishing to watch Zimbabwe's 2010 World Cup/African Cup of Nations qualifier against Namibia on Sunday will have to fork out up to $10 billion for a ticket.
This isn't a joke. This is ridiculous!

A few weeks ago I posted a link to a Guardian article about Australia's decision to change confederations, to leave Oceania for the greener pastures of Asia.
The article detailed how not every Asian federation was pleased with the move, and one of the more aggrieved were the Chinese. And with reason.

The Canadian men's team wants to make their first world cup appearance since 1986 and they think playing at Montreal's Saputo Stadium is the way to do it.
Tonight sees them take to the Saputo grass pitch for the first time as they try to finish off St Vincent & the Grenadines in the return leg of a two-game series and many players think this field will give them what they need to win.

I have always been staggered by the fact that India does so poorly on the international sporting stage. India is a cricket power, I know, and they're strong at field hockey as well (though they have struggled of late), but what about the Olympics? The land of over one billion people claimed just one medal, a bronze, at the 2000 Games and just one silver at the 2004 Olympics.

Aside from the swirling mass of journalist- and blogger-fabricated rumors swirling the Internet (Ronaldinho to sign with the LA Galaxy? Come on!), there is little going on in the football/soccer world. And to that I say, thank goodness!
I love the game as much (if not more) than the next fanatic, but after a string of USA friendlies at the beginning of June, then three weeks of non-stop Euro 2008 action and 2010 World Cup qualifiers on top of all of that, I need a breather.

Stadium issues have reared their ugly face in Africa again as at least eight Liberian football fans died this weekend in Monrovia, Liberia during their country's opening World Cup qualifier against Gambia.
A BBC correspondent in Monrovia says many fake tickets were in circulation, leading to overcrowding at the 33,000 capacity Samuel K.

Canadian men's soccer coach Dale Mitchell has named the 19-players he will use for their 2010 World Cup qualifying matches against Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. The Canadians are looking to reach the finals for the first time since 1986.

Here is their roster:

GK (2): Greg Sutton (Toronto FC), Pat Onstad (Houston Dynamo)

D (6): Jim Brennan (Toronto FC), Mike Klukowski(Club Brugge KV), André Hainault (Sparta Praha), Ugo Ihemelu (Colorado Rapids), Adrian Cann (Vancouver Whitecaps), Richard Hastings(Inverness CT)

M (7): Adrian Serioux (FC Dallas), Julian de Guzman (Deportivo La Coruna),Paul Stalteri (Fulham FC),Marcel de Jong (Roda JC), Issey Nakajima-Farran (FC Nordsjælland), Atiba Hutchinson (FC København), Patrice Bernier (FC Kaiserslautern)

F (4): Tomasz Radzinski (Skoda Xanthi), Dwayne De Rosario (Houston Dynamo), Ali Gerba (FC Ingolstadt), Rob Friend (Borussia Mönchengladbach)

The Canadians play in Kingston this Sunday and then head home to Montreal for the second leg next Friday (20 June).