Isn’t it about time for 2010 qualifying to start?…..

The host country’s team begins to prepare for 2010 (BBC)
The FA Cup trumps Euro 2008 qualifying in England (Team Talk)
Louis van Gaal linked with Australia job (Sporting Life)
Former Swiss national coach Rene Hussy passed away (Paddock Talk)
Zidane turns down chance to play with Materazzi (The Offside)

Some World Cup-related news heading into a glorious football weekend…

The U.S. team could play in Europe more in the future (Yanks Abroad)
Totti better than C-Ron? That must be the drugs talking (Soccer 365)
Thierry Henry out for three months (Reuters)
2006 World Cup committee is no more (Playfuls)
The World Cup was good to Umbro (Scotsman)
The Swiss [...]

Because the news never really stops….

Dwight Yorke retires from international football to concentrate on club hopping (Daily Star)
Dunga ditches Adriano. Will he ditch that ugly shirt next? (Team Talk)
Peru has a new coach who has been there before (Guardian)
The African Union wants police from other parts of Africa to help with 2010 security (SABC)
The [...]

My apologies for the infrequent posting of late. The Offside and other duties have called. Here are some quick World Cup-related headlines from today….

Only 1,221 days to go! (Road to 2010 World Cup)
A shortage of raw materials could delay the construction of stadiums in South Africa… (Reuters)
…but the Cape Town stadium is back [...]

Details, details. It turns out those widely reported stories about the 2006 World Cup final attracting one billion television viewers might have been slightly off the mark.
From the Independent:
So how many people actually watch the World Cup final live, from start to finish? According to Initiative Sports Futures, independent analysts with no ties [...]

Every couple of weeks FIFA head honcho Sepp Blatter crawls out of his undisclosed cave to give his thoughts on the world’s game. Today he weighed in on who should host the 2018 World Cup, something both England and the United States covet. Making sure to cover all the bases, Blatter said he [...]

The host of the 2014 World Cup hasn’t even been officially announced yet and already things are heating up in the race to host the 2018 World Cup. England is widely expected to launch a bid for the tournament, which they last hosted in 1966. The 1994 host country United States is also [...]

There is no rest for the weary or for fans of international football. South America’s organizing body CONMEBOL has proposed that qualifying for the 2010 World Cup kick off on September 8th this year. The first day of matches would feature Bolivia at Uruguay, Brazil at Colombia, Chile at Argentina, Paraguay at Peru [...]

The goal scoring average at the 2006 World Cup might not have been very high, but there was a lot of scoring off the pitch during the competition. Maternity wards in Germany are reporting that they are fully booked and are having to arrange extra beds for all the women expecting babies in April.
Midwife [...]

Dearest Patrons,
After much delay and many technical challenges we have found a defense against the massive amounts of spam that were inundating World Cup Blog. As a result we have been able to turn the comments back on. You still may not be able to comment on some of the threads that were [...]