This Time Next Week… an Avalanche of International Football

Aside from the Algarve Cup and the CONCACAF Under-23 Pre-Olympic Tournament, it’s been a quiet month for international football. But all that will change next week, on Wednesday March 26th.

There’s a bonanza of Asian World Cup 2010 qualifiers to be played, including China vs Australia and the already dramatic North Korea vs South Korea (in Shanghai.) There’s also Kuwait vs Iran, where the latter will attempt to get their qualification ambitions back on track, following a shock goalless draw against Syria and the circus that was the Iranian FA’s attempts to hire a new coach. We’ll see if eventual choice of Ali Daei can do the business.

There are all kinds of friendlies too, as the Euro 2008 teams begin their preparations, and the non-Euro 2008 teams think about what might have been. Games to look out for include France vs England, where David Beckham could win his 100t cap (or not) and Scotland vs Croatia where we’ll see how Croatia cope without Eduardo. There are also several Euro 2008 teams going head to head. Romania vs Russian, Austria vs Netherlands, Switzerland vs Germany, Portugal vs Greece and last but by no means least Spain vs Italy.

Cross-continental games of interest include Poland vs USA and Sweden vs Brazil, Ghana vs Mexico, and I’ll have at least one eye on Egypt vs Argentina where the recent Africa Cup of Nations will take on the number one ranked FIFA team.

Here is the complete friendly fixture list:

Algeria v Congo DR
Andorra v Latvia
Armenia v Kazakhstan
Austria v Holland
Belarus v Turkey
Belgium v Morocco
Bosnia-Herzegovina v FYR Macedonia
Bulgaria v Finland
Colombia v Honduras
Denmark v Czech Republic
Estonia v Canada
France v England
Ghana v Mexico
Hungary v Slovenia
Israel v Chile
Lithuania v Azerbaijan
Luxembourg v Wales
Malta v Liechtenstein
Moldova v Albania
Montenegro v Norway
Northern Ireland v Georgia
Poland v USA
Portugal v Greece
Romania v Russia
Scotland v Croatia
Slovakia v Iceland
South Africa v Paraguay
Spain v Italy
Sweden v Brazil
Switzerland v Germany
Tunisia v Ivory Coast
Ukraine v Serbia

And as Joe pointed out in the comments, it’s also the end of the First Round of CONCACAF World Cup 2010 Qualifying, with the smaller teams in the region playing two-legged knockout games and the big boys of USA, Mexico etc waiting in the Second Round. The team with the biggest task on their hands is Anguilla, who have a 12-0 first leg deficit to overturn against El Salvador.

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