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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Probably not...which is a shame. It's got a really good goalscoring record against one of the top teams in the Premiership.

Anyway, here's the line up for the UEFA playoffs: all of them kick off at 7pm GMT on Saturday November 14th 2009.

Greece v Ukraine

Ireland v France

Portugal v Bosnia & Herzegovina

Russia v Slovenia

It's also worth noting that on the Saturday the second leg of the New Zealand/Bahrain (0-0) playoff kicks off at 7am GMT that Saturday and the first leg of Costa Rica v Uruguay kicks off an hour later than the European games.

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Confirmed qualifiers in alphabetical order: Australia, Argentina (yes, they did it - and it wouldn't have been the same without them), Brazil, Chile, Denmark, England, Germany, Ghana, Honduras, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, North Korea, Paraguay, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and USA.

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Hello again, it's a brief one this evening but we'll have another couple of posts before the weekend with more news from the final round of qualifiers and a Premiership preview.

Our unbeaten run went out of the window at the weekend, but we're not reading too much into it: if Rio Ferdinand is having a 'blip' we'd rather he had it now than next June and imagine how disappointing it would have been if we'd been unbeaten until the first game of the tournament proper.

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By the end of the weekend, we'll probably have a much better idea of who will joining the countries who have already qualified for South Africa, who will be in the play offs and which (if any) of the major footballing powers will be watching England on TV. Here's a quick guide to the various scenarios that will be played out around the world today:

EUROPE

Group 1: wide open.

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Firstly, apologies that we've missed a couple of weeks on the Premiership front due to obligations elsewhere but as England have their last qualifying games for the 2010 World Cup coming up and it would be missing the point of the entire blog for to ignore them, we're back for a two part preview of the qualifiers that are taking place all over the world over the next week or so.

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Last time we beat anyone 5-1 in a World Cup qualifier, our opponents reached the final and we got knocked out by the team that beat them.

But at least we have the chance to stop that from happening again - and here are the caps and exclamation marks I promised earlier:

WE QUALIFIED EASILY WITH A 5-1 WIN OVER CROATIA!

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Brazil qualified at the weekend thanks to a 3-1 win in Argentina, who
are now fourth in the South American group, five points behind Chile and Paraguay and only two points in front of Colombia and Ecuador. If Ecuador win in Bolivia this evening or Colombia win in Uruguay and Argentina fail to pick up a point in Paraguay early on Thursday morning then either or
possibly both of them latter could leapfrog Diego's boys.

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Sunday's 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup final live on ESPN from Ellis Park in Johannesburg, South Africa, - a 3-2 victory for Brazil over the United States - was the most-watched non-FIFA World Cup match featuring the U.S. Men's Soccer National Team on the network, with an average of 3.945 million viewers. Click to continue reading...

June 21st 2:30 pm - Watch USA vs Egypt live on ESPN2 and spanish language channel Telefutura. This is the 3rd match of the Group qualifying for both teams, however Egypt have performed signicantly better compared to the US. Egypt lost their initial match against mighty Brazil 3-4. Egypt gave a strong performance and matched brazil [. Click to continue reading...

Many Italians and Brazilians will be tuning in Sunday June 21st at 2:30 PM EST to watch a massive match taking place in the FIFA Confederations Cup 2009 in South Africa. This is the 3rd match in the qualifying group which contains Brazil, Italy, USA and Egypt. The funny thing is that with 2 games played [. Click to continue reading...

Visit http://www.livesoccertv.com/livefooty.html for the Live Soccer Schedule published weekly including the FIFA Confederation Cup 2009 TV Schedule Click to continue reading...

The football stadium in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth has been the first newly-built 2010 World Cup ground to be officially opened, a year before the start of the tournament in South Africa. The 48,000-seater Nelson Mandela Bay stadium will host eight games at the World Cup, including a quarter final and the third/fourth place [. Click to continue reading...

The Antonio Vespucio Liberti Stadium in Argentina will welcome Diego Maradona's Albiceleste and Coffee Makers Colombia as both teams clash against each other on June 6, in yet another intriguing World Cup qualifier in South America's group zone. The Argentines appear to be completely devastated after suffering a shocking 6-1 hammering in the hands of Bolivia [. Click to continue reading...

Paraguay Analysis Paraguay will try and go back to winning ways when they host Chile with a sixth consecutive home win on Saturday, June 6. La Albirroja suffered a rare defeat to Uruguay followed by a draw against Ecuador which let Brazil close the gap to only three points at the top of the table. However, the [. Click to continue reading...

Uruguay welcome CONMEBOL defending champions Brazil on Saturday, June 6, at the Centenario stadium as qualification for the World Cup resumes in South America. Both teams will enter the game with the fervent desire of clinching all three points. Brazil are very much on course to qualifying for the World Cup finals in South Africa, despite [. Click to continue reading...

Uruguay welcome CONMEBOL defending champions Brazil on Saturday, June 6, at the Centenario stadium as qualification for the World Cup resumes in South America.Both teams will enter the game with the fervent desire of clinching all three points. Brazil are very much on course to qualifying for the World Cup finals in South Africa, despite [. Click to continue reading...

The Antonio Vespucio Liberti Stadium in Argentina will welcome Diego Maradona's Albiceleste and Coffee Makers Colombia as both teams clash against each other on June 6, in yet another intriguing World Cup qualifier in South America's group zone.The Argentines appear to be completely devastated after suffering a shocking 6-1 hammering in the hands of Bolivia [. Click to continue reading...

Paraguay AnalysisParaguay will try and go back to winning ways when they host Chile with a sixth consecutive home win on Saturday, June 6. La Albirroja suffered a rare defeat to Uruguay followed by a draw against Ecuador which let Brazil close the gap to only three points at the top of the table.However, the [. Click to continue reading...

Bafana Bafana (The Boys) is South Africa's national team of football. The country can certainly not place itself among the ranks of Brazil or one of Europe's elite Italy but the history of this club is no less than notable. South Africa were under FIFA's ban until 1992 when they were ordered the right to return [. Click to continue reading...

New Zealand's national team of football, also called the All Whites, are arguably Oceania's most successful football country but their record on the International stage especially is yet to reach good standards. New Zealand participate in this year's Confederations Cup for another time, portrayed as the team with the least chances to do any harm. Click to continue reading...

 Only GolTV Delivers Live and Premiere Coverage of Nine Qualifying Matches Featuring FIFA's Top-Ranked Teams Spain, Germany, Netherlands & Italy MIAMI – March 26, 2009 - GolTV, the only live bilingual channel delivering 24/7 soccer, will deliver live and premiere coverage of nine European 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches on March 28 and April 1 [. Click to continue reading...

AT 12:30 PM (ET)/ 9:30 AM (PT) ON SETANTA SPORTS England to unveil new uniforms TORONTO (March 26, 2009) – England will be sporting a new look when they take to the pitch at Wembley Stadium in an international friendly versus Slovakia Saturday, March 28 at 12:30 p.m. ET/ 9:30 a.m. PT LIVE on Setanta Sports. Click to continue reading...

Capello's England squad: Becks to fit in? The Three Lions are on their best qualification campaign track ever in their history of football, sharing a 100% record so far like European Champions Spain. They resume their road to South Africa 2010 on April 1, with a home game against Ukraine. Capello's men are strong favorites going into [. Click to continue reading...

Maradona's Argentina to keep flying high The appointment of Diego Maradona as coach of the two times World Cup winners Argentina has sent the Albicelestes into a new era. The national team seems to have been reshaped by his policy based on ambition, optimism and precise players' selection. Visit Argentina v Venezuela Match Page Two consecutive wins [. Click to continue reading...

Brazil take on Peru on April 1, in what will be their second qualification game in a space of four days. The South American champions have a slight advantage over the Peruvians in terms of head to head according to history. Both sides have met seven times in the qualifications stages for the World Cup, [. Click to continue reading...

Preview of Mexico v Costa Rica Day 1's two losers in CONCACAF's sole qualifying group, Mexico and Honduras, clash against each other on April 1, 2009 at the Francisco Morazán Stadium in Round 4 of the CONCACAF region qualifiers for South Africa 2010. Honduras recorded only their fourth win in a total of 26 meetings against Mexico [. Click to continue reading...

Can Ecuador overcome Brazil? La Tri will welcome world giants Brazil on March 29, 2009 in Quito when the qualification for South Africa 2010 resumes next month. Following a bad run of four losses, three draws and only three wins in 10 games, the Ecuadorians find themselves seating in sixth place behind Chile and Uruguay, and just [. Click to continue reading...

South America's group leaders Paraguay take on fourth placed Uruguay at the Centenario in Montevideo on March 28, where they'll have the chance to extend their lead to 9 points at the top of the table before Argentina's game to Venezuela hours later, and Brazil's encounter away to Ecuador the day after. Click to continue reading...

March 28th will showcase football at its best when the World Cup qualifiers resume in Europe. One of the most anticipated clashes on that day will be Spain v Turkey.  The tie will feature the World number 1 taking on last summer's European Championship semi-finalist in what could have been a repeat of Euro 2008's [. Click to continue reading...