World Cup Round up: Rooney Out, Bora Sacked, Asian Second Round Qualifiers

England’s Euro 2008 qualifying chances took yet another blow Friday when it was announced that Wayne Rooney injured his ankle in practice and that he will miss the next four weeks of football. That means he won’t be around for England’s must win Euro 2008 match against Croatia. That also means he won’t be around to play with David Beckham who was called up to play in the match. Somewhere this evening Steve McClaren should be polishing his resume and looking through the help wanted ads.

Speaking of unemployed managers, a couple days after I linked to a glowing article Bora Milutinovic and the job he was trying to accomplish as the manager of Jamaica, the Jamaican Football Federation has gone and sacked him. The reason? His breached his contract. Not sure what that means but my guess is that Bora continues to be a difficult guy to work with and for the amount of money he commands they figured he wasn’t worth the hassle.

There is a job opening in Ireland, but don’t expect Mick McCarthy to take it. He says he’d rather kiss his sister. Well, not in those exact terms but you get the idea.

Hey, there was a few World Cup qualifiers played today. Singapore defeated Tajikistan 2-0 in the firs leg of their second round Asian qualifying tilt. Yemen and Thailand played to a 1-1 draw. Syria put the boot in against Indonesia 4-1. Syria might give some of the big boys some trouble next round. They look vastly improved. Hong Kong face Turkmenistan at home on Saturday.

Dunga was slapped with a four-game ban for getting booted out of a match earlier this year. The four games are actually only two if he stays out of further trouble and they will be in meaningless friendlies so essentially he has been rewarded for his actions.

Samuel Eto’o says that come hell or high water he wants to play in the African Nations Cup. Considering the amount of time he has been out injured I’d be happy to see him play in a Sunday league game even. Barcelona fans might disagree.

Germany’s list, Spain’s list, Colombia’s list, USA’s list, France’s list

Fans of FIFA Vice President Jack Warner will be delighted to know that he will continue in that role despite being elected to political office in Trinidad and Tobago. By “fans”, I mean Warner and his thieving family members.