This started during the week, which kind of took me by surprise.
Zimbabwe have been kicked out for outstanding debts to a former coach; they'll probably have that cleared by the time of their draw though. Myanmar have to play all their home matches outside of the country because of crowd trouble in the last World Cup.
Six pre-qualifying matches in Asia were on during the week. Bhutan entered for the first time and won in Sri Lanka, which I think is up there with the Faroes coming along and winning their first competitive tie too. They've also got a super jersey -
Other results were -
India 2-0 Nepal; India got a bye through this round last time out - don't know if the growing interest in the game there is going to have any effect in this campaign
Yemen 3-1 Pakistan
Timor-Leste 4-1 Mongolia
Cambodia 3-0 Macau
Taiwan 0-1 Brunei
Return games are on Tuesday, while CONCACAF starts next week.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 15/03/2015 at 12:08 PM.
Second legs on at the moment. Bhutan win again! Last-minute winner against Sri Lanka to win 2-1; 3-1 on aggregate. So there'll likely be a new worst team in the world when the rankings are updated.
Pakistan v Yemen postponed after a suicide bomb in Lahore - the match venue - yesterday.
India and Timor-Leste also through. Cambodia now 4-0 up on aggregate, but Taiwan have levelled and it's 1-1 on aggregate with 45 minutes to go in Brunei.
Just to complete Asia, Taiwan won 2-1 on aggregate and Brunei are out; Cambodia also through 4-1 on aggregate.
CONCACAF has also started. Barbados 0-1 Virgin Islands. Nicaragua are maybe a bit unlucky to be in the first round; they beat Anguilla 5-0. St Kitts and Nevis were 1-1 against the Turks & Caicos after 25 minutes when they had a player sent off - they went on to win 6-2. Doesn't really say much for T&C! You can watch the entire second half on YouTube, with the first goal on 22:30.
Bahamas v Bermuda tonight, followed by the return legs starting on Thursday.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 24/03/2015 at 5:14 PM.
Dare I risk life and limb by suggesting this thread should go in this forum http://foot.ie/forums/35-World-Cup
Yours etc
The Forum Police
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Ireland's "qualification" for the WC2018 in a way has started too. If we win our next three home games then Pot 2 is a real possibility for when the draw comes around in July. This would really help our qualification.
Happy to move as per OwlsFans' suggestion! Will let the mods arrange if required.
Curacao beat Montserrat 2-1 in the last of the first round first legs in CONCACAF - Curacao are managed by Patrick Kluivert for this campaign.
St Kitts strangely won 6-2 against T&C Islands again - so 12-4 on aggregate.
I think it's June before the next matches are played - CONCACAF round 2. El Salvador and Canada will be the first former finalists to start their campaign.
The next round is starting in CONCACAF and Asia now.
Bhutan have lost their 100% World Cup record after a 7-0 defeat in Hong Kong.
Guam have also lost their 100% World Cup record - played 2, lost 2, scored 0, conceded 35; neither result is actually their record defeat - in beating Turkmenistan 1-0.
Indonesia have been expelled for government interference, and their group now only has four teams.
Kuwait are the first team who've previously qualified to play in this campaign; they're 0-0 against Lebanon at the moment.
Canada get their campaign underway tonight; they'll be the second country who've previously qualified to do so. They're in Dominica.
Oman came closest to qualifying last time out of the teams who've played so far; had they drawn instead of lost in Jordan in their last game, they'd have gone into a play-off with Uruguay. They're 2-1 up in India at the moment. Bit of a kick in the teeth for the I-League. Iran should win that group; Guam and Turkmenistan should be nowhere, and India and Oman should be challenging for the second qualifying spot (for the next round)
Last edited by pineapple stu; 11/06/2015 at 3:30 PM.
My Curacao team in FM were savage. It's great being able to tie down Dutch nationals so early. Got a job with Croatia after leading them to a 5-1-2 record.Originally Posted by pineapple stu
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Guam have just beaten India this morning! 2-1, with India scoring in injury time.
That's an incredible result.
They still have to face the team who beat them 35-0 on aggregate the last time they played (Iran). Next up is a home game against Oman (third home game in a row)
Edit - I see actually Guam are ranked ahead of India. Still, a country of 150k beating one of 1.2bn is always impressive.
Former St Pats main man Ryan Guy in that Guam team too. That's enough for me to fully sign up to the Matao cause. Up Guam!
Ou-est le Centre George Pompidou?
Didn't spot that. They've gone and "signed" a couple of ex-US internationals as well.
Few other results today. Bhutan hammered again; 6-0 by China. Uzbekistan - who were two goals away from qualifying last time out - were 4-0 down in North Korea within 40 minutes, and ended up losing 4-2. The goal updates came in spurts on livescore on that one; I can only imagine it might be difficult getting updates from home North Korea games!
Palestine hammered Malaysia 6-0, Australia scraped by Krygyzstan 2-1, the UAE beat East Timor with an 80th minute goal, Japan drew 0-0 with Singapore and Turkmenistan recovered from losing to Guam to draw with Iran. Might be a surprise or two in that section.
Draw for other qualifiers is tomorrow. Starting at 1600.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Oceania started up this morning.
The Cook Islands won their first ever qualifying game, 3-0 against Tonga. Game was played in Tonga as well, on the wonderfully-named Loto-Tonga Soka Centre (Field 1)
I presume "soka" is pidgin for "soccer".
Somoa beat American Samoa 3-2; only the winners from that group of four progress to the next round.
Matches in the North/Central American and Asian qualifying this week.
UAE 6-0 up against Malaysia after half an hour!
Looks like South Korea's 8-0 win over Laos today (the biggest in the tournament so far) is under threat.
Edit - 7-0 now; 40 minutes gone. Malaysia subbed their keeper at 4-0; the new guy conceded within a minute.
UAE 10-0 Malaysia in the end.
Immediately bettered by Qatar's 15-0 win over Bhutan.
Saudi Arabia's turn to go mad now; 5-0 up on East Timor after half an hour.
Fair few mismatches yesterday in the end...
Australia 5-0 Bangladesh
Iran 6-0 Guam
Saudi Arabia 7-0 Timor Leste
South Korea 8-0 Laos
Kuwait 9-0 Myanmar
UAE 10-0 Malaysia
Qatar 15-0 Bhutan
Puts our game against Gibraltar into perspective - maybe they're not too bad after all!
Samoa snuck through by one goal in Oceania after the top three teams all ended on six points
CONCACAF section today
Malaysia reacted to that 10-0 defeat by sacking their manager, taking the lead against Saudi Arabia - but when 2-1 down with three minutes to go, fans came good on their threat to riot due to their poor form, and the game was abandoned.
I presume Saudi Arabia will be awarded a 3-0 win, and Malaysia can expect at best a home game ban I would have thought.
Tim Cahill - who I thought had retired after the last World Cup - scored two for Australia in Tajikistan. Guam held Oman at home and are still joint top of their group - though third in goal difference. Hong Kong nearly rescued a draw against Qatar but are still doing quite well given they didn't even make this stage last time.
Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Myanmar all playing their home games in other countries. The Maldives and Kuwait have also switched one match each to another country. There's two more rounds of games next month.
Patrick Kluivert is out of the World Cup after Curacao lost 2-0 on aggregate to El Salvador. Next round - including Mexico and the US - starts in November.
South Sudan's first ever World Cup match was rained off after 10 minutes today.
Score was 1-1 at the time, and the game will resume tomorrow.
Lots of games across the world in the past week.
In Asia, Saudi Arabia racked up the fourth double-digit score of the group stages when beating East Timor 10-0 away; four goals in the last five minutes plus a red card for East Timor, so fair to say the hosts tired...
Jordan, who played Uruguay in a play-off last time, lost away to Kyrgyzstan, allowing Australia to take over at the top of their group; Tim Cahill scored a hat-trick against Bangladesh. Both should still go through though.
Hong Kong drew 0-0 against China for the second time, and China are in danger of going out despite only conceding one goal in six games. They'll probably need to beat Qatar at home - who've the group won - and hope Hong Kong don't get a result there the previous week and hope that's enough for a best runner-up spot. Bhutan got a respectable 3-0 defeat against Qatar at home, having lost 15-0 away. Their away record is 0-34 (with one game to come), and their home record is 3-14. Presumably they have an altitude advantage.
Kuwait were suspended from FIFA last month, so their game against Myanmar was postponed.
Overall, China the only big team in real danger at the moment. Thailand maybe the big surprise; they should go through to the last 12. Eight group winners and four best runners-up all progress.
In Africa, 2006 qualifiers Angola and Togo are already gone, as are Ethiopia, who made the final play-offs last time. Some near things for other big names in the two-leg play-offs to qualify for the groups. Chad beat Egypt at home, but lost 4-0 away. Swaziland and the Comoros drew 0-0 with Nigeria and Ghana, but both lost 2-0 away. Tanzania and Madagascar drew 2-2 at home with Algeria and Senegal, but lost heavily away. Morocco scraped past Equatorial Guinea 2-1 on aggregate. 20 teams left; five groups of four to be drawn shortly, with the winners each going to Russia.
In North America, the US haven't had the best of starts. Went 1-0 down to St Vincent before coming back to win 6-1, and then drew 0-0 with Trinidad. Canada beat Honduras, who made the last two World Cups. Panama - who came within minutes of reaching a play-off with New Zealand last time at Mexico's expense - lost at home to Costa Rica, but then beat Jamaica away, so looks like they should still make the Hex.
In South America, Argentina have scored twice in four games and are currently not even in a play-off spot, though they did draw with Brazil at least. Ecuador are clear at the top, Brazil are mopping up at home but lost in Chile, who are only in the play-off spot despite their great World Cup and Copa America performances lately. Venezuela, the only team never to have qualified, have regressed on recent campaigns and have lost all four games so far. Long way to go obviously.
No more games until March in all regions I think.
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