All Things Football #1
Posted by Frankie Lally on September 7, 2009 | No Comments
Football Corner is delighted to welcome Frankie Lally on board with his new weekly column. Frankie, considered by many as the next best thing in football blogging, will bring you ‘All Things Football’ every single Monday, so stay tuned.
International football. Lambasted by many as a boring weekend of football, maybe a weekend of friendlies perhaps, but there was certainly nothing boring about the world cup qualifiers this weekend.
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The pick of the bunch for me was Argentina vs Brazil. A thrilling game which kept me awake until the early hours of Sunday morning. After an absorbing 90 minutes, Brazil booked their place in next years world cup in South Africa running out 3-1 winners in Buenos Aires, a result which will heap even more pressure on Diego Maradona. Argentina currently occupy 4th place in their qualifying group, and are under tremendous pressure from Columbia to hold onto that all important final automatic qualifying place.
If Argentina lose to Paraguay on Wednesday night, its not beyond the realms of possibility that we could be without two of the worlds greatest players in, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi at next years world cup. As Portugal are also in a very tough position after a draw in their vital qualifying game against Denmark.
Meanwhile the Republic of Ireland took a three points towards qualifying beating Cyprus 2-1 in Nicosia thanks to goals from Robbie Keane and Kevin Doyle. The result leaves Ireland just one point off world champions Italy at the summit of group 8. This leaves us with a mouth-watering game when the Azzurri travel to Dublin in October.
Italy only remain top of group 8 thanks to an amazing TWO own goals from Georgian player Kakha Kaladze who, funnily enough plays with Italian giants AC Milan. Coincidence? Perhaps… I can hear the rumours starting as I type!
Another key talking point about the weekends action was England striker Wayne Rooney’s dive against Slovenia. I think Rooney did indeed dive, therefore deliberately trying to con the referee and should therefore be just as harshly punished as Eduardo was, with a 2 game ban. I think if FIFA really do want get rid of diving in the beautiful game they must be consistent on this one.
Finally, looking ahead to Wednesday’s games there is some really good ones to look forward to. Paraguay vs Argentina, Hungary vs Portugal and surprisingly, Slovenia vs Poland should be an absolute cracker. My pick though would be Scotland vs the Netherlands . A game Scotland MUST win if they are to have any chance of qualifying for the World Cup. I believe Scotland may just sneak this one as the Netherlands have already booked their place in South Africa and Scotland will be really fired up after their win against Macedonia on Saturday. Any of you fancying a bet this week, I think this could be the one to take. You can get Scotland at 21/10 courtesy of Paddy Power.
Agree or disagree with any of the topics covered? Feel free to leave your comments below.
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