The Groups

[Admin]

Group 1: Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Albania, Malta.
Group 2: Greece, Israel, Switzerland, Moldova, Latvia, Luxembourg.
Group 3: Czech Republic, Poland, NORTHERN IRELAND, Slovakia, Slovenia, San Marino.
Group 4: Germany, Russia, Finland, WALES, Azerbijain, Leichtenstein.
Group 5: Spain, Turkey, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Armenia, Estonia.
The easiest group, albeit one which you couldn't script: Croatia, ENGLAND, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Andorra.
Group 7: France, Romania, Serbia, Lithuania, Austria, Faroe Islands.
Group 8: Italy, Bulgaria, REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, Cyprus, Georgia, Montenegro.
Group 9: Holland, SCOTLAND, Norway, FYR Macedonia, Iceland.

NORTH AMERICA: The Concacaf qualification process is a complete dog's dinner: The teams that come out of this lot will advance to three groups of four. The top two sides from each of those groups will then enter one final group, from which the top three teams qualify. The fourth team in the group will play off against the fifth place South American side. Does it really have to be like this?

1A: USA play Dominica or Barbados
1B: Guatemala play Turks and Caicos Islands or St Lucia
1C: Trinidad and Tobago play Bermuda or Caymen Islands
1D: Cuba play Aruba or Antigua and Barbuda
2A: Mexico play Belize or St Kitts and St Nevis
2B: Jamaica play Bahamas or British Virgin Islands
2C: Honduras play Dominican Republic or Puerto Rica 2D: The winner of Canada v St Vincent and the Grenadines gets a bye 3A: Costa Rica play US Virgin Islands or Grenada
3B: Guyana play Suriname or Montserrat
3C: Panama play El Salvador or Anguilla
3D: Haiti play Nicaragua or Netherlands Antilles.

Irony is usually flat on the page, but not this time. "The coverage of this draw is just scintillating," writes Irene Permaul.

ASIA: OK, here we go. "Bloody hell, will you look at that" in bold:

Group 1: Australia, Iraq, Qatar and China
Group 2: Oman, Thailand, Bahrain, Japan
Group 3: North Korea, Jordan, Turkmenistan, South Korea
Group 4: Lebanon, Singapore, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia
Group 5: Syria, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iran

[hassan134]

GO LEBANON, we have Saudi Arabia, damnit thats a difficult group!

1st Lebanon
2nd Netherlands
3rd United States

ALL OF THEM HOPEFULLY WILL QUALIFY

[runrig]

Some tough ties
Think Engerland will have to play in the eight best losers knockout to qualify for one of the four places when the nine group winners go through automatically

[Noot]

ofir12 Wrote:Group 9: Holland, SCOTLAND, Norway, FYR Macedonia, Iceland.


2D: The winner of Canada v St Vincent and the Grenadines gets a bye

Definitely like the looks of that

[huzup]

aah - Croatia
enough said

[gazza_rfc]

come on scotland

[i like chocolate]

To be honest, im not too worried. Croatia and Ukraine are our real threats, but i think we can definitely get a couple of wins against Ukraine and Possibly a win and a draw against the Croats. But otherwise, i think we should beat them all. But then again, Ukraine are about the same quality of Russia, and Croatia, are Croatia!

[simpleman]

Why should we be worried? Once Billy Davies is appointed as England manager, we should be able to take on the world! The FA appointed McClown so surely Billy has as much experience if not more to take this appointment.....for those more simple than me..I'm being sarcastic.

[whu79]

i like chocolate Wrote:To be honest, im not too worried. Croatia and Ukraine are our real threats, but i think we can definitely get a couple of wins against Ukraine and Possibly a win and a draw against the Croats. But otherwise, i think we should beat them all. But then again, Ukraine are about the same quality of Russia, and Croatia, are Croatia!

I think it must be perverse of me, but I'm just plain looking forward to the challenge. I think if we pull our socks up, get sorted and take 'em head on, I am looking forward to seeing our boys play Croatia again. Hopefully this time with a manager who'll bring the best out of them. Whether we win or lose, I'm hungry for the ruck!

That said...winning would be better I'm pleased with England's draw results. It's just challenging enough that if we make it through we know it'll be because we're a good team.

Soon as we lost to Croatia that 2nd time I started thinking how great it'll feel to beat them someday. Now we've got the chance again.

[zimdan]

Finally australia have been allowed to play in the asian section instead of having to always playoff with the 5th placed south american team.

We shall leave that for new zealand! haha