Are you ready for some football!?
Today is the biggest club match in the World. Luckily for football fans we have arguably the two best teams in the World competing in the final, the English Champions Manchester United and the Spanish Champions Barcelona. Both teams have players suspended for the final, with United missing midfielder Fletcher and Barcelona without both of their regular full backs Alves & Abidal. It is certain to be a great game. If you would like to read more about the build up to the final then I suggest you check out The Canadian Stretford End where Sam has done a lot more research into this final than I have. If you are looking for more then why don't you head over to the BBC live text which has been running since I woke up this morning. There are also a lot of articles that you can find links to from The Score's Footy Blog.
My prediction is for a 3-2 Barcelona Victory, Sam at the Canadian Stretford End predicted 3-0 for United. What are your predictions?
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying - The Road to South Africa 2010
With the World Cup now only 380 days away it is time to look at the qualifying situation in CONCACAF. For those of you who don't know CONCACAF is the North America, Central America, and Caribbean qualifying zone. At present the United States are leading the group with 7 points from three matches. The only real anomaly is Mexico who are currently sitting in fourth place with 3 points from 3 matches. Their next match will be their first without Swedish Coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who I think it is fair to say enjoyed a less than stellar reign as Mexico boss. With Mexico currently sitting in a play-off place they will look to catch Costa Rica & Honduras who are sitting above them with 6 & 4 points respectively. There are also two teams on two points: El Salvador who are a bit of an upset to make it this far, and FIFA Vice President Jack Warner's Trinidad & Tobago. I did my best to try to forget that Jack Warner was associated with T & T when I was predicting the matches. Unfortunately for fans of the Soca Warriors and El Salvador I see them remaining the bottom two teams. I also think that Mexico will rediscover their form under new leadership and I have them winning the group, followed by Honduras, and the United States. That puts Costa Rica in the playoff against Ecuador and I think that the South Americans will take the playoff and go to South Africa.
In case you wanted to laugh how wrong I was 9 months ago when I predicted what would happen I had Mexico, Canada (oops), & the USA advancing with Cuba (oops again) in the playoff spot ahead of Costa Rica & El Salvador. Next up in the Qualifying Preview Tour is Africa.
In case you wanted to laugh how wrong I was 9 months ago when I predicted what would happen I had Mexico, Canada (oops), & the USA advancing with Cuba (oops again) in the playoff spot ahead of Costa Rica & El Salvador. Next up in the Qualifying Preview Tour is Africa.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Confederations Cup Preview
The Confederations Cup gets underway in 3 weeks and there are few interesting things about this tournament. Obviously the looming match up of Italy and Brazil in the group being one of the matches to watch. The story that I am most interested in however is who will advance along with Spain from Group A, in fact I have even added a poll to see what you think.
The groups in this tournament are quite lopsided in Group A we have the European Champions Spain, the Asian Champions Iraq, the Oceanic Champions New Zealand (Australia is now considered an Asian Country if you were wondering what happened to them) and the Hosts South Africa. In Group B we find the World Champions Italy, the North American & Caribbean Champions USA, the South American Champions Brazil, and the African Champions Egypt.
I have no doubt that Spain will be top of Group A. The question is which team will join them? It could really be any of the three. South Africa has been very poor of late, if you haven't been following, they lost out of the World Cup Qualifying (which doubled as African Cup of Nations Qualifying which is why they were participating) and thus will miss the African Cup of Nations in Angola. This is a huge blow as it means that the Confederation Cup are their only competitive matches until the World Cup. In a similar position is New Zealand they have already won the Oceania World Cup qualifying and await a playoff opponent from Asia in October. It has been a long time since New Zealand has played some strong opponents and making it out of this group will give them a lot of confidence going into their playoff match up. Iraq were unlucky to not advance to the final round of the World Cup qualifying. They will be focused on this tournament as a chance to brighten spirits back home, much the same way that their victory in Asia did.
I have been thinking about this for some time, and I keep switching between Iraq and New Zealand as the team to advance with Spain, conveniently for us football fans they meet in the final group game that is likely to decide who progresses to the next stage. But seeing as how I should pick someone I will stick with my gut and go with New Zealand.
Group B is also a bit difficult to figure out as Brazil and Egypt haven't been too consistent of late. To illustrate this point Brazil drew 0-0 with Bolivia in World Cup Qualifying. What is that you say it was the Altitude? Nope it must have been the attitude as the match was in Brazil! Egypt seems to have two different teams, the team that dominates in the African Cup of Nations and the team that doesn't get results anywhere else. Sadly for fans of the Pharaohs this will be another disappointing tournament as I think that Egypt will be the whipping boy of Group B and return to Cairo with 0 points. The way I see it unfolding for the rest of the teams is a draw between Italy and the US, Brazil beating the Americans, and Brazil and Italy battling to a draw. This means that Italy and Brazil advance to the semis.
In the Semis I have Spain playing Italy in another great match up, I see the Spaniards advancing to the final. The other semi pits New Zealand against Brazil, this is the end of the road for New Zealand (if New Zealand pull off a shock here it would likely be the end of the road for Dunga) setting up a great Spain - Brazil final.
In the final I think that Spain will win and cement themselves as the favourites to win next summer at the World Cup.
The groups in this tournament are quite lopsided in Group A we have the European Champions Spain, the Asian Champions Iraq, the Oceanic Champions New Zealand (Australia is now considered an Asian Country if you were wondering what happened to them) and the Hosts South Africa. In Group B we find the World Champions Italy, the North American & Caribbean Champions USA, the South American Champions Brazil, and the African Champions Egypt.
I have no doubt that Spain will be top of Group A. The question is which team will join them? It could really be any of the three. South Africa has been very poor of late, if you haven't been following, they lost out of the World Cup Qualifying (which doubled as African Cup of Nations Qualifying which is why they were participating) and thus will miss the African Cup of Nations in Angola. This is a huge blow as it means that the Confederation Cup are their only competitive matches until the World Cup. In a similar position is New Zealand they have already won the Oceania World Cup qualifying and await a playoff opponent from Asia in October. It has been a long time since New Zealand has played some strong opponents and making it out of this group will give them a lot of confidence going into their playoff match up. Iraq were unlucky to not advance to the final round of the World Cup qualifying. They will be focused on this tournament as a chance to brighten spirits back home, much the same way that their victory in Asia did.
I have been thinking about this for some time, and I keep switching between Iraq and New Zealand as the team to advance with Spain, conveniently for us football fans they meet in the final group game that is likely to decide who progresses to the next stage. But seeing as how I should pick someone I will stick with my gut and go with New Zealand.
Group B is also a bit difficult to figure out as Brazil and Egypt haven't been too consistent of late. To illustrate this point Brazil drew 0-0 with Bolivia in World Cup Qualifying. What is that you say it was the Altitude? Nope it must have been the attitude as the match was in Brazil! Egypt seems to have two different teams, the team that dominates in the African Cup of Nations and the team that doesn't get results anywhere else. Sadly for fans of the Pharaohs this will be another disappointing tournament as I think that Egypt will be the whipping boy of Group B and return to Cairo with 0 points. The way I see it unfolding for the rest of the teams is a draw between Italy and the US, Brazil beating the Americans, and Brazil and Italy battling to a draw. This means that Italy and Brazil advance to the semis.
In the Semis I have Spain playing Italy in another great match up, I see the Spaniards advancing to the final. The other semi pits New Zealand against Brazil, this is the end of the road for New Zealand (if New Zealand pull off a shock here it would likely be the end of the road for Dunga) setting up a great Spain - Brazil final.
In the final I think that Spain will win and cement themselves as the favourites to win next summer at the World Cup.
Friday, May 22, 2009
South America World Cup Qualifying - The Road to South Africa 2010
With 384 days to go until the World Cup kicks off, and only a few weeks before the next round of Qualifying matches it is high time for an update. In South America there are only 6 matches left, meaning that two thirds of the campaign is already behind us. Which ever 'Guay' you slice it there is some exciting football ahead. South American teams qualify through one table which operates like a ten team league. The top four teams qualify for South Africa and the fifth team enters a playoff against the fourth place CONCACAF side. Paraguay are leading group at the moment with Brazil, Chile, and Argentina occupying the rest of the automatic places. Uruguay currently have the playoff place. If you are interested the complete table can be found here. There are a lot of interesting matches remaining such as Argentina - Brazil or any team at Bolivia. Brazil have quite a difficult run in compared to some of the other teams. That said I see the current top four remaining the top four after the last match, with a few teams changing places. The real battle will be for fifth place with Ecuador, Uruguay, & Colombia. Anything could happen, looking at the fixtures it is easy to see what the outcome could be, but the reason that we watch the games is because that rarely occurs. My latest prediction sees Ecuador winning a decisive home match against Uruguay on October 10, that is enough to secure the playoff spot. To summarize I have Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, & Chile advancing to the World Cup with Ecuador in a playoff against a CONCACAF opponent that they will beat. When I made my first predictions nine months ago I had Argentina, Brazil, Chile, & Colombia advancing with Paraguay in the playoff. I thought that Colombia was playing well, but the wheels have fallen off for them, and I thought that Paraguay would slow down, but they have kept up the pace. I am looking forward to seeing how this plays out. For the next update we are heading North to look at CONCACAF and find out who Ecuador's playoff opponents will be.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Pompey to Survive after 0-0 draw
It was not the season that anyone Pompey supporter envisioned, after coming off FA Cup victory and looking forward to our debut in Europe. Something went array - We lost our way. Harry quit and left for Spurs and Tony Adams took over. Even before Harry quit - Pompey were gaining a reputation for blowing leads especially blowing them late, this continued throughout the reign of Tony Adams. Blown leads against AC Milan & Wolfsburg saw us eliminated from the UEFA Cup. I would like to say that despite the blown lead against Milan that was one of the finest matches I have ever seen Pompey play. We started tumbling down the league table and saw ourselves in the thick of the relegation battle. Then the winds of change blew through Fratton Park for the second time in a season and Adams was out and Hart was in. Things started to improve and Pompey started playing the football that we knew they could. Which brings us to Today after a 0-0 away to Newcastle we have reached 38 points, which is enough to ensure our continued survival in the premier league. One need only look to our South Coast rivals to see what could happen if we went down. It is a big relief for me that we have reached 38 points. My main worry now is that we don't lose most of our first team players (Niko Krancjar looks certain to go). But as we are up for sale, money may be recouped from the sale of players may be needed. I know that David James, Peter Crouch, & Glen Johnson are all targets for other Premier League clubs. The main thing is we will be in the Premier League again next season. Play Up Pompey!
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