World Cup Qualifying Games to Watch on 09/09/09
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 is a big big day for World Cup qualifying. Some teams will actually qualify. Some teams will be eliminated. And some will keep hope alive for at least another month.
For those with multiple televisions, here are seven games to keep an eye on:
Paraguay vs Argentina
After the 3-1 home defeat to Brazil, Diego Maradon’s Argentina are in serious trouble. Occupying the fourth and final automatic qualifying spot in South America, they need to start picking up points. But apart from Brazil, Paraguay is arguably the most dangerous team in the region right now.
Under head coach Argentinean Gerardo Martino, Paraguay are five points ahead of Argentina in third place and secure qualification with a win. If that happens, El Diego could find himself unemployed.
England vs Croatia
England famously failed to qualify for Euro 2008 when Croatia beat Steve McClaren’s team 3-2 at Wembley. But it’s Fabio Capello calling the shots now, and England can wash away the sins of Second Choice Steve by beating Croatia at Wembley and making their presence in South Africa next summer official.
Both sides are missing important players. Croatia are without playmaker Luka Modric, who fractured his fibula playing in the Premiership for Spurs, while England will be without Zagreb hat-trick hero Theo Walcott, who’s he’s been out injured since pre-season.
To add a little extra spice, Croatia coach Slaven Bilic has claims he’s spotted England’s secret weakness. Which will probably turn out to be Glen Johnson’s inability to stop Ivica Olić going past him.
Cameroon vs Gabon
Huge game in CAF Group A, where table topping Gabon travel to (surprisingly) third place Cameroon. Only the winner of the four team group qualifies, so Cameroon need a result while Gabon need to hang on. Second place Togo will be hoping both teams somehow lose.
Serbia vs France
Serbia lead UEFA Group 7 by four points, so if France want to catch the leaders then this is a must win. French preparations haven’t been helped by the Titi Henry vs Raymond Domenech bust up, and – if you ask me – their whole campaign hasn’t been helped by keeping the astrology loving manager employed. Serbia qualify with a win. Anything less than three points for France makes the playoffs a very real possibility.
Hungary vs Portugal
Let’s not beat around the bush here: Portugal are in deep deep doo doo. Fourth in Group 1 behind Denmark, Hungary and Sweden. A defeat here means an almost (but not mathematically certain) failure to qualify. And that would mean no C-Ron at World Cup 2010. Make of that what you will.
On the other hand, it seems that giving little Brazilian striker Liédson a Portuguese passport has solved their “striker? what striker?” problem. Liédson currently averages an international goal every 45 minutes (although to be fair he’s only actually played 45 minutes).
Scotland vs Netherlands
UEFA Group 9 (the one with only five teams) gets wrapped up this week. Netherlands are already qualified, but Scotland need a result to a) guarantee second place (Norway could still leapfrog them) and b) try and make sure they finish in the top 8 second place teams and therefore make the playoffs.
James the new Maradona? McFadden is suspended, but expect a classic gutsy Scottish performance whatever happens.
Saudi Arabia vs Bahrain
The Asian qualifying section is already in playoff mode, with these two fighting for the right to face New Zealand in a further playoff, and the winner of that game getting the golden ticket. This is the second leg, with the first leg finishing 0-0.
And yes, I know there are plenty of other games going on. There are actually 35 (I think) World Cup qualifying games happening on Wednesday. If there’s a big game not on the above list, and you want to share some info about it, please feel free to do so in the comments.
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Comments
By Jose | September 8th, 2009 at 5:07 pm 
Incredible how there are no CONCACAF games here… Although CONCACAF is gonna come down to the last match day.
By Utku | September 8th, 2009 at 5:14 pm Turkey v. Bosnia game will determine the fate of both teams
By MoMONEY | September 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm Turkey game will be huge. Hope they make it after that Euro performance…
By Luka | September 9th, 2009 at 12:08 am Jose – becuase CONCACAF is a joke. 3.5 places for the second weakest confederation is, simply, a joke.
Posted from 
Australia
By Jacek | September 9th, 2009 at 12:09 am May the gods be with Hungary tomorrow! Go Maygars!
Posted from 
Canada
By Jose | September 9th, 2009 at 7:46 am Luka- Nice try, but wrong discussion. If you honestly expect KSA or Bahrain to do better than the CONCACAF countries.. well, lol.
By John | September 9th, 2009 at 9:28 am I side with Luke here. KSA and Bahrain are in no way better than CONCACAF “strong” teams, such as Mexico and USA. But put Asian super powers like South Korea or Japan, and they should win in double digits. I live in the USA. Football’s a joke here.
Posted from 
United States
By Jose | September 9th, 2009 at 6:56 pm I’ve watched tons of CONCACAF match and I’d agree with you… then I caught some AFC games. There’s a reason AFC got no one out of the group stage in 2006 (unless you count AUS, which wasn’t AFC back then).
By ricardo | September 9th, 2009 at 8:31 pm Luka,have you even seen a CANCACAF game, since your from australia I am guessing that’s where this misplaced sense of competition level is coming from, well its better to see facts than words so lets see what happens at the world cup, but honestly japan, south korea, and australia better than Mexico, USA, and Honduras that’s just pure ego clouding your judgement
Posted from United States
By Fernando | September 9th, 2009 at 8:34 pm Don’t know about these games mentioned above, the best games I saw today were Northern Ireland vs Slovakia… that kid Miroslav Stoch is phenomenal, what an amazing winger—Slovakia deserved the win. The Uruguay-Colombia match was great, even though the guy who makes my morning coffee will be disappointed as his Croatia were on the losing end, England vs Croatia… who cares really? England was going to win that match no matter what… so I don’t see how there can be any drama leading up to that match… Uruguay vs Colombia…. that was an amazing second half… see http://www.lacelesteblog.com/
Posted from United States
By Luka | September 10th, 2009 at 12:30 am I am saying CONCACAF is a joke because of the amount of automatic places it gets in the world cup, relative to the difficulty of qualification. Look at the final table – 3/6 automatically go through, while another still has a playoff chance. For the last 10000 years Oceania hasn’t even had ONE measly automatic place, then even this HALF chance was against a South American team (making it almost impossible for Australia or NZ to qualify). Don’t you think every confederation deserves at least ONE automatic qualifying spot?
Posted from Australia
By rorysm | September 10th, 2009 at 8:15 am After seeing how horrible New Zealand were in the Confederations Cup, no, I don’t think Oceania deserves an automatic spot at the World Cup. Believe me, I’d love it if Concacaf’s fourth team played Oceania’s champ (always going to be New Zealand from here on out) for the spot in the World Cup. It’s funny that Australia goes to Asia to avoide having to play a South American team and now Oceania gets the easier route through a play in with Asia’s 3rd or 4th best.
Let’s hope Bahrain makes it in the World Cup, at least it would be nice to see a new country there.
Posted from United States
By rorysm | September 10th, 2009 at 8:18 am I forget… which Confederations champ beat the African Champion and the European Champion in the Confederations cup?
Oh yeah… that was Concacaf. What did the Asian champs or Oceania champs do at that contest?
Posted from United States
By Luka | September 11th, 2009 at 12:27 am Australia went to Asia for the challenge – to get more games against better opposition. I would go as far as to say that we’d be contemplating moving to ASIA even if we had an Automatic WC qualifying spot. Still, Oceania deserved at least one spot when Australia was there (what’s wrong with 3 spots for CONCACAF and one for Oceania? After all, CONCACAF only has two decent teams – Mexico and the USA – both of which Australia would beat more often than not).
Posted from Australia
By yasuhito | September 11th, 2009 at 5:34 am JAPAN IS BEST IN THE WORLD
By Chat | September 13th, 2009 at 4:23 am tesekkurler
By wlan router | September 24th, 2009 at 11:26 pm Good article.I think Turkey game will be huge.So my point of view Turkey is the best….
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