The four play-off games in the European qualification zone were all tight affairs with all left to play for in the second legs. France edged Ireland 1-0 at Croke Park in Dublin with a second half Nicolas Anelka goal.
In Lisbon, a Bruno Alves strike gives the Portuguese a slight advantage ahead of the return leg in Sarajevo. Click to continue reading...

Saturday sees the penultimate day of World Cup qualifers with nine of the 32 places still up for grab.
Already qualified
HOSTS: South Africa
AFRICA: Ghana, Ivory Coast
ASIA: Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea
EUROPE: Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland
S. Click to continue reading...

The new Egypt football home shirt for the 2009-10 and 2010-2011 seasons has been released by Puma. The Egyptian national soccer team will wear this jersey in Angola (2010) when they defend their African Cup of Nations title. The template used is similar to the other creations by Puma for the African Cup of Nations. Click to continue reading...

Cameroon sits at the top of Africa's Group A, having climbed from fourth (last) to first during the last break by virtue of their two wins against Gabon, who previously led the group. The Indomitable Lions lead Gabon by one point, Togo by two, with a November trip to Morocco to close-out qualifying. Click to continue reading...

European leagues take a break this weekend to allow World Cup qualifying action to continue after almost a month. With only 2 rounds of games left to play, many teams will look to secure a spot in South Africa no later than Sunday.

Â

The African qualifying region cannot get any tougher.

Click to continue reading...

Futty Danso

The reason Mamadou "Futty" Danso wore the rather odd number 98 for the Portland Timbers this year says a lot about globalization and soccer. The story starts in his native Gambia, where he grew up carefully watching African players who found success on the international scene.

Click to continue reading...

The Indomitable Lions have released their newest set of shirts made by German kit giants Puma. These are also the photos for Cameroon's shirts for the 2010 African Cup of Nations ( CAN or AFCON as you might prefer to call it). Check out the photos of the new Cameroon shirts ( nouveau maillot Cameroun 2010). Click to continue reading...

The Black Stars will shine in South Africa
Brazil is known as the neutral's favorite, but I have always been partial to the African teams. They seem to play without the crushing pressure that causes other teams to implode. The pride the players feel when playing for their country is a little more palpable. Click to continue reading...

Just like there is only one true Mecca, can really only be one true spiritual home of world soccer? Until recently, such a place existed in the form of Wembley Stadium (the most storied grounds in the capital city of the founding nation of the sport? I don't think anybody could compete with that) but the old Wembley was demolished in 2003 and replaced with a new version four years later. Click to continue reading...

It's been some time since my last post so let's catch up on some news from the 2010 World Cup and African football, shall we?
First off, some self-promotion ... my post on Africans in the UEFA Champions League from earlier today ... don't you dare miss it!
- Are you interested in the upcoming African Cup of Nations in Angola? Click to continue reading...

The home continent of the 2010 World Cup is close to having its 5 qualifying sides defined for The Great Tournament. The 1st team to officially qualify is Ghana. The Black Stars defeated Sudan 2-0 at home to secure top spot in Group D. Goals by Inter midfielder Sulley Muntari & Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien sealed the victory.

Click to continue reading...

The home continent of the 2010 World Cup is close to having its 5 qualifying sides defined for The Great Tournament. The 1st team to officially qualify is Ghana. The Black Stars defeated Sudan 2-0 at home to secure top spot in Group D. Goals by Inter midfielder Sulley Muntari & Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien sealed the victory. Click to continue reading...

If World Cup qualifying ended today, prominent African footballing countries Cameroon, Nigeria, and Egypt would miss the World Cup, making this week's qualifiers critical for each nation. But in a tournament where twenty teams are divided into five groups of four (meaning only six matches will decide if you are the one nation from your group which will represent that continent in South Africa) every match is critical. Click to continue reading...

Samuel Eto'o now is in the company of Hristo Stoichkov, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, and a host of others that were superstars while wearing the blaugrana who ended up shunned and escorted out the back door of the Nou Camp. Eto'o's was among one of the more despicable ones. He wasn't allowed into the . Click to continue reading...

FIFA's July 2009 world rankings are out and in Africa, Ivory Coast's Elephants reign supreme.
The Elephants are 18th in the world, up 20 places from last month. They've now over taken last month's African #1, Cameroon, who slipped to second, 29th in the world.
This matches Ivory Coast's highest ever position in the FIFA table. Click to continue reading...

The African continent is still in the early stages of World Cup qualifying and its looking like Africa will continue to surprise the footballing world. Gabon continued its perfect start to qualifying with their 3-0 home win over Togo. Turkish based striker Roguy Meye scored his 2nd goal in as many games in the final group stage as the Azingo Nationale lead Group A.

Click to continue reading...

We inch closer and closer to finding out which countries will represent the African continent in the first World Cup on African soil.
This weekend shed some light on which countries will make it - and which won't.
For a complete run down of the group standings, please click here. Click to continue reading...

Benin overcame the formidable challenge of Angola on Sunday to join Nigeria and Cameroon in the last phase of African qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

A 3-2 win in Cotonou for the small West African country came 24 hours after Cameroon had secured their progress by beating the Cape Verde Islands 2-1 in Praia.

Click to continue reading...

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. Click to continue reading...

While the eyes of your average European soccer fan were squarely focused on Euro 2008 recently, other things were, remarkably, going on elsewhere in the world.
We speak, of course, about the qualifying competition for World Cup 2010 and this May and June has proven to be a busy period for every continent except Europe, so let's catch up with what's been going on, starting with. Click to continue reading...

FIFA have just released their new world ranking table and there are some surprises.
Coming in at first place is newly crowned Euro 2008 champions Spain, who knocked former #1 Argentina off the top with their exceptional performance in Austria/Switzerland.
Argentina had held the top spot since October 2007. Click to continue reading...

Japan 2, Cameroon 0. No, I didn't get to see this match and from the looks of the score, I doubt I'll bother trying. Looks as if either jet lag got to the Indomitable Lions or Osim played the trump card and put everyone behind the ball. I'm gonna guess a mixture of both. The scorers for the Daihyo were Tanaka in the 25th minute and Yamase in the 90th. Click to continue reading...

Ah, International friendlies, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. On Wednesday about half the countries of the world are participating in potential FIFA ranking boosters as they steal countrymen from their clubs and send fans into worrisome frenzies about whether or not their star players will return unscathed. A lot of the matches have the potential to be quite entertaining. Click to continue reading...

Ah, International friendlies, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. On Wednesday about half the countries of the world are participating in potential FIFA ranking boosters as they steal countrymen from their clubs and send fans into worrisome frenzies about whether or not their star players will return unscathed. A lot of the matches have the potential to be quite entertaining. Click to continue reading...