Preliminary African World Cup Qualifiers Set; Oceania Blowouts

This is the moment you have all been waiting for. The preliminary 2010 World Cup qualifiers for Africa have been announced and we now know the fate of Djibouti, Comoros Islands and Seychelles. Those teams, along with seven others will play home and away matches on October 12 and November 16. The winners will advance to the first group phase in Africa which will be drawn on November 25.

The preliminary pairings:

Central African Republic v Sao Tome e Principe
Madagascar v Comoros Islands
Sierra Leone v Guinea Bissau
Seychelles v Djibouti
Somalia v Swaziland

Realistically none of these teams has much of a chance of making it to South Africa in 2010, but they’ll have fun trying. There was also plenty of fun in Oceania this weekend with the start of World Cup qualifying off to a ridiculously lopsided start.

Tahiti 0-1 New Caledonia
Solomon Islands 12-1 American Samoa
Fiji 16-0 Tuvalu
Vanuatu 4-0 Samoa

I consider it a small miracle that American Samoa even scored!