Archive for the ‘World Cup’ category

FIFA Qualifying Matches – African & South American Zone

September 7th, 2009

The African zone saw Ghana become the first team to qualify for the final showdown from the continent. Ghana defeated bottom placed Sudan in Group 4 by 2-0. Goals from Muntari and Chelsea player Essien in the 14th and 53rd minute respectively saw the home team through to South Africa for the 2010 finals.

Group 1 saw Cameroon defeating Gabon by 2-0 and Togo drawing 1-1 at home against Morocco. Group 2 had Mozambique defeating Kenya by 1-0. Another game from the group saw Tunisia scoring a late goal to draw 2-2 against Nigeria.

A goal by Ahmed Hassan for Egypt gave his team a 1-0 victory over bottom placed Rwanda in Group 3. Algeria vs. Zambia saw Algeria win the game with a 1-0 score line. Another match in group 4 saw Benin drew 1-1, away to Mali.
Group 5 had Ivory Coast defeating Burkina Faso 5-0. A goal from Toure and two goals each from Keita and Drogba saw Ivory Coast winning their 4th consecutive game in the group. Ivory Coast is just one point away from the finals in South Africa. Malawi defeated Guinea 2-1 in the other match from the group.

In the South American Zone, Peru defeated Uruguay 1-0, Colombia defeats Ecuador 2-0, Argentina loses 1-3 to Brazil, Chile drew 2-2 at home against Venezuela and Paraguay defeats Bolivia 1-0. The results saw Brazil qualifying for 2010 finals and kept their record of qualifying in all the FIFA World Cups till date. Chile and Paraguay are on second and third place respectively with 27 points. Argentina remains 4th in the group with 22 points.

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FIFA Qualifying Matches – Argentina Vs Brazil

September 7th, 2009

All the 10 teams from the South American continent played their qualifying matches today. The big match of the day was between the two super powers of football, Argentina and Brazil. Five times world champion, Brazil humiliated Argentina by defeating them 3-1 in front of the Argentinean crowd in Rosario.

This time it was Argentina, 4th placed team in the group who was playing at home and had a chance to score a win in front of their home fans. Argentina showed promised at the start of the game, and almost scored in the 1st minute itself, but probably lost their touch through the course of the game.

Brazil didn’t take long to take the lead. Luisao scored in the 23rd minute. Seven minutes later Luis Fabiano scored another for Brazil, much to the disbelief of the Argentineans. Brazil kept pushing Argentina even after leading the game 2-0 at half time.

There were a few streaks of genius from Messi but the hero was Dátolo whose screamer in the 64th minute got a goal back for Argentina and the 45000 fans in the stadium were frenzied as they believed they can still win this game.
2 minutes later Luis Fabiano scored his second goal for the night, the 3rd for Brazil. The goal made the score line 3-1 giving Brazilians a boost cushion, and keeping the Argentineans out of reach. The match ended at 3-1 to Brazil. The win made Brazil the first team to qualify for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa and the loss looks damaging for the Argentineans to qualify for the finals.

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FIFA Qualifying Matches – European Leg 5th September Part 2

September 6th, 2009

Group 5 saw Spain defeating Belgium in the qualifier tonight and making it 7 wins out of 7 in the qualifiers. David Silva opened the scoring for Spain in the 41st minute. Two goals in two minutes from Villa and Pique in the 48th and 50th minute took the match away from Belgium. Silva and Villa again scored one goal each in the 67th and 84th minute making the score 5-0 at final whistle. Other matches in the group saw Turkey defeating Estonia by 4-2 and Bosnia defeating Armenia by 2-0.

In Group 6, Ukraine defeated Andorra 5-0 at home with goals being scored at regular interval. Croatia defeated Belarus 1-0 at home and looked better. England play Croatia at Wembley on the 9th September in another qualifier and if England manages to win, it will become the second team from Europe to book a berth at the main event in South Africa.

World Cup 2006 runners up, France failed to score 3 points as they drew 1-1 at home against Romania in Group 7. In another game, Austria defeated Faroe by 3-1. Group toppers Serbia play France on the 9th September in Serbia. France needs to score 3 points in that match, if they want a direct entry to the 2010 finals.

World Champions Italy, look well on course for the 2010 finals as they defeated Georgia by 2-0 and remained on top in Group 8. In another match, Ireland defeated Cyprus 2-1 which allowed them to close the gap between them and Italy to a mere 1 point.

Scotland defeated Macedonia by 2-0 goals and took the second place in the group after Netherlands. If they remain second they will qualify for play off’s. Another match between Iceland and Norway ended in a 1-1 draw.

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FIFA Qualifying Matches – European Leg 5th September Part 1

September 6th, 2009

Today 42 European teams played their Qualifying games and tried to get closer to the 2010 fWorld Cup finals in South Africa. So far only the only country from Europe zone to qualify is Netherlands.

Group 1 saw Denmark playing Portugal in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. To the despair of Portugal, the match was ended in a draw and it saw Portugal drifting away from a place in the 2010 finals. Arsenal’s Bendtner scored a goal in the 42nd minute which saw Denmark leading by 1 goal at half time. Second half saw Portugal not able to score which made them frustrated as a loss would make sure that they will not qualify for the 2010 finals. In the 86th minute Liedson scored the equaliser which gave Portugal a chance to still remain in the completion. Another match in the group saw Sweden defeating Hungary by 2-1.

Group 2 had Moldova playing Luxemberg at home. The match ended in a 0-0 draw. Israel was defeated 0-1 by Latvia at home. Switzerland maintained the top spot in the group with a 2-1 win over Greece.

Group 3 saw two matches being played which both resulted in a draw. Slovakia drew 2-2 at home against Czech Republic and Poland drew 1-1 at home against Northern Ireland. Slovakia maintained the top spot in the group.

In Group 4, Russia were playing at home against Liechtenstein. Two goals from Pavlyuchenko and a goal from Berezutskiy made sure that Russia were on course to South Africa. Azerbaijan was defeated 1-2 at home by a more experienced Finland side.

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Groups and Standings for FIFA World Cup 2010

September 2nd, 2009

The African continent has a total of 54 countries fighting each other to take make it to the allotted 6 places of 32 in the 2010 finals. 1 of the 6 places has already been awarded rather easily to South Africa by virtue of them being the host nation. The remaining 53 countries will go through three qualifying rounds at the end of which only 5 nations will get a ticket to the finals.

The third qualifying rounds in progress as of now, and only 20 countries remain from the total of 53. These 20 teams are divided into 5 groups, and the topper of each group gets a ticket to play in the 2010 finals.10 teams will play from the Oceania leg for a possible place in the finals. After two rounds of qualifying games, New Zealand have emerged winners of the Oceania leg and will play against the winner of 5th ranked team from the Asia leg, for a place in the finals.

From the Asia leg, a total 43 teams have been fighting for 4 rounds for 5 possible places in the 2010 finals. The top 2 finishers from group 1 and group 2, Australia, Japan, Korea Republic and Korea DPR respectively have already booked their berth in the 2010 finals. The 3rd ranked team from both the groups, namely Bahrain and Saudi Arabia will play each other over two legs, and the winner will play against New Zealand for a place in the 2010 finals.

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FIFA World Cup European Qualification Details

August 31st, 2009

A total of 53 European countries are fighting to qualify for the finals of the FIFA World Cup in 2010. The countries have been divided into 9 groups, namely Group 1 to Group 9. Group 1 to Group 8 consists of 6 teams each, and Group 9 has 5 teams.
Denmark who are so far unbeaten, top Group 1 with 16 points followed by Hungary on 13 points. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal is in 3rd place with 9 points and can face elimination from the South Africa finals. Sweden is just behind Portugal on goal difference with 4 matches remaining.

Group 2 has Greece and Switzerland on 13 points, followed by Latvia at 10 points. Israel can still qualify as they have 9 points with 4 games still to be played.

Group 3 is probably the most uncertain as 5 of the 6 teams still having a possibility of qualifying. Slovakia tops the group with 15 points and is followed by Northern Ireland with 13 points.

Group 4 is dominated by Germany and Russia. Germany sits comfortably on the top with 19 points followed by Russia in second place with 15 points.

Group 5 sees European champions Spain with 18 points from 6 games followed by Bosnia-Herzegovina on 2nd place with 12 points.

England have registered 7 wins of 7 games played and have logically booked a place in next year’s finals. They are followed by Croatia in 2nd place with 14 points in Group 6.

Group 7 has Serbia at the top with 18 points followed by France at 13 points, who also have a game in hand as compared to Serbia.

World champions, Italy are topping group 8 with 14 points, and are being closely followed by Rep of Ireland at 2nd place with 13 points.

Netherlands have become the first team to qualify in the 2010 Fifa World cup finals from Europe. They have registered 7 wins out of 7 and are followed by Macedonia with 7 points in Group 9.

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ESPN Planning To Buy Premier League Rights

December 10th, 2007

Disney-owned ESPN now reaches over ten million homes in Europe, but having the rights to the Premier League owned by the network is a great option, spectators say.

ESPN president George Bodenheimer says the network is interested in bidding for the rights to Premier League matches in 2009. He even called it a “fabulous property” for one to have during an interview. Bodenheimer said the network, which is 80 percent owned by US broadcaster ABC, a subordinate of the Walt Disney Corporation, wanted to expand.

The news is not likely to go down with Premier League’s distribution partner, Setanta Sports at this time holding four out of the six Premier League packages and which is anticipated to bid a second time.

BSkyB pays about £4.8m for each game and Setanta £2.8m. The league also offered a new £625m deal for overseas television rights.

It is seen to likely face rough competition with BSkyB and Setanta seeing football as an asset to gaining more subscribers.

Some Europeans have not liked the idea of “Americans” covering their sports matches assuming ESPN does win the rights in the future. Some, however, loves the idea knowing that it will outclass Sentana or BSkyB.

To add to ESPN’s interest in Premier League football, they also recently bought the world’s largest cricket website Cricinfo and Scrum.com which is known to be the largest rugby website. According to ESPN’s website, they are able to reach 93 million homes within the United States and broadcasts to 190 countries in 15 languages.

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