With 23 nations already qualified for World Cup 2010, there are just nine places in South Africa still up for grabs. Three of those will be decided when African qualifying concludes next Wednesday. But that’s a separate post. The six other qualifiers will be decided by playoffs, starting tomorrow.
There are eight European teams competing for four places. They’ll play two legs over the next five days (Saturday, November 14th and Wednesday, November 18th) and the four winners go to South Africa. Second prize is watching World Cup 2010 on television.
Similarly, there’s the acronym-lovers delight that is the CONCACAF vs CONMEBOL playoff. Same deal. Two legs, one winner.
Last – and some might argue least – there’s the second leg of the Oceania vs Asia playoff.
Those six contests are outlined below, along with my own attempts at picking the six qualifiers. We dare – make that doubledare – you to pick your six World Cup qualifiers in the comments.
Teams on the left are at home on Saturday, November 14th. Teams on the right are at home on Wednesday, November 18th. Best aggregate score over two legs gets a trip to South Africa. And the answer is yes, if scores are level after two legs then away goals count double.
UEFA Playoffs:
Ireland vs France
This is arguably the most interesting of all the playoffs. Mostly because of the war of words that’s going on. Raymond Domenech was a little disrespectful towards the Irish team last month, and more recently Ireland’s Richard Dunne has suggested that the French players are laughing at Domenech. Juicy.
France WCB preview
Daryl’s pick: France have the superior players, Ireland have the superior coach in Giovanni Trapattoni (pictured). I’m going with Ireland. Because Domenech’s luck can’t last forever, and because he’s already made the Irish players very very angry.
Portugal vs Bosnia-Herzegovina
Can Portugal handle Bosnia’s Wolfsburg based attacking duo of Edin Džeko and Zvjezdan Misimović? Maybe, maybe not. There will officially be no Cristiano Ronaldo for Portugal. But that might not be a bad thing. Relying on an injured superstar is never a great strategy. The real difference here could be Portugal’s recently Brazilian-born striker Liédson, the goal-getter whose naturalization and international debut four games ago not so co-incidentally co-incided with Portugal’s change in fortunes.
Portugal WCB preview
Daryl’s pick: Portugal over two legs, but will be close.
Greece vs Ukraine
I’ll be honest, I don’t know a great deal about the current Greece national team, other than the fact that Theofanis Gekas was top scorer in Euro qualifying with 10, but not deemed good enough to play for Portsmouth last season. So mixed messages there. I saw Ukraine get a deserved 1-0 win over England recently and would find it hard to bet against them, especially with a much happier looking Andriy Shevchenko being motivated by one more shot at World Cup glory.
Ukraine WCB preview (new Ukraine blogger Bannon doing some great work there).
Daryl’s pick: Ukraine. It’s not just Shevchenko. It’s also guys like his Dynamo Kyiv strike partner Milevskiy (I love the idea of club and international duos), Barcelona defender Dmytro Chyhrynskiy, and Bayern’s long-haired midfield destructor Anatoliy Tymoschuk.
Russia vs Slovenia
Slovenia seemed like the team everyone else wanted to draw in these playoffs, mostly because their squad isn’t full of household names. I’ve heard them described as “organized” in defence, but lacking firepower. That probably won’t be enough to get past Russia, who ran Germany very very close in Group 4. Also, playoffs are knockout football, a place where Guus Hiddink is king.
Daryl’s pick: Guus + Arshavin + the fact we don’t have a Slovenia blog = Russia going though.
CONCACAF/CONMEBOL Playoff:
Costa Rica vs Uruguay
It’s always tempting to pick the South American team over the CONCACAF team, just because. But this game is going to be all about home field advantage and how much you can make of it. Costa Rica’s Estadio Ricardo Saprissa Aymá (aka the Monster’s Cave) has artificial turf, which has to be to Costa Rica’s advantage since they’ll be more familiar. But they’ll need to build up a lead at home, because going to a packed Centenario in Montevideo is going to be overwhelming. Uruguay looked woeful in the all-important qualifier vs Argentina last month, but the firepower of Diego Forland and Luis Suarez should be enough to see them through.
Daryl’s pick: Uruguay
(Want to write our vacant Costa Rica or Uruguay blog? Read this and then get in touch.)
OCEANIA/ASIA Playoff:
New Zealand (0) vs Bahrain (0)
Those goose eggs are there in brackets because the first leg of this has already been played. And it was ugly. A goalless draw in Bahrain in which neither team looked even close to capable of scoring. So no away goals for New Zealand, but they do have homefield advantage and the motivation of playing in front of 35,000 (the biggest ever NZ soccer crowd) in Wellington. Plus they have talents like Blackburn’s Ryan Nelsen and Celtic’s Chris Killen to call on. Bahrain are no mugs though. They’ve already beaten Saudi Arabia in the Asian playoff to get here, and could easily catch the All Whites out with a counter-attack and take this on away goals. I’m nervous just writing about it.
Daryl’s pick: Heart says New Zealand (because we have a NZ blog) but head says Bahrain.
So, my six winners are as follows:
Ireland
Portugal
Ukraine
Russia
Uruguay
Bahrain
Yours?
ESPN has taken more than their fair share of stick for their football/soccer coverage, and for good reason. They’re American (despite dubbing themselves The Global Leader) and, by and large, they do American sports well. Others: not so much.
This seems almost impossibly unimportant following 
Who needs actual footballing playoffs when you can just watch the bureaucratic battle that is club v country?
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