World Cup Round Up: Strange Bedfellows, 2008 African Cup of Nations Draw

One of the by-products of globalization is that football teams are made up of players from all corners of the globe. That makes things interesting when club teammates square off against one another while on international duties and friends face one another. For example, we learn that Blackburn Rovers player Zurab Khizanishvili went out of his way to help Everton’s James McFadden avoid a sending off in Scotland’s match against Georgia.

“James was shouting and I didn’t want him booked or sent off before the Italian game,” said Khizanishvili. “I said, ‘Just calm down’. I didn’t want him to shout at the referee. He is my friend, he is a good lad and if it was somebody else then maybe I would have said something much stronger.

Meanwhile, we learn that Israel keeper Dudu Auoate (great crossword puzzle name) is keen on helping out England in their quest to qualify for Euro 2008 by beating Russia in their tilt next month: “The English fans can rest assured we’re going to give everything to win. England can count on our 100% commitment,” the 30-year-old said in The Sun.
“I like England a lot, I like the Premier League - but we’re going to do this for ourselves. We want to win for our fans and country. It’s a question of national pride. If by winning we can help England, then great.”

Speaking of Israel, remember how last week a German youth player of Iranian decent refused to play against them? Well, he has become a hero to some in Iran. “Ashkan Dejagah belongs to Iran. Dejageh by refusing to go to Israel proved that he loves Iran and is attached to his country,” Iranian vice-president and the head of Iran Physical Education, Mohammad Aliabadi, who is responsible for the nation’s sport, was quoted as saying.

After the chaos at the end of the clash between Togo and Mali last week, the African Football Confederation has placed an indefinite ban on games being played at Togo’s Kegue stadium. That is a week too late for the Malian players who were attacked in the incident.

With England, possibly the United States and other nations all vying to host the 2018 World Cup, the bidding process will be intense. You can add a joint bid from Belgium and Netherlands to the mix. Both countries have the infrastructure and are easy to get to from most parts of Europe, but there is something about them that doesn’t excite me. My vote for the moment would go to England.

As for the 2030 World Cup, it is never too early to get the planning underway. Argentina is on board with the idea of hosting it with Uruguay. Can’t we at least wait until 2014 is over to start talking about this one?

The 2008 African Cup of Nations draw has been announced. Among the tasty treats, Nigeria and Ivory Coast have been put into the same group. My predictions for who will win each group:

Group A: Ghana
Group B: Nigeria
Group C: Cameroon
Group D: Tunisia

After getting into a fight with a Serbian player, Big Phil has been hit with a big fine by the football federation in Portugal.

Weekend World Cup Qualifying Fixtures
Sunday, October 21
Mongolia v Korea DPR
Timor-Leste v Hong Kong
Sri Lanka v Qatar
Bahrain v Malaysia
China v PRMyanmar
Monday, October 22
Pakistan v Iraq

Spanning the blog
* A blog is born (Chile World Cup Blog)
* A blog is re-born (Ivory Coast World Cup Blog)
* It hasn’t happened very often (Mexico World Cup Blog)
* A good time for experiments (Tunisia World Cup Blog)

Hey, we’ve got a new look to World Cup Blog and the capacity to add more blogs. If there is a national team that you are passionate about and you think it would be fun to blog about them, get in touch.

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