The Football Blog continues its look at the teams still harbouring ambitions of qualifying for next summer’s World Cup, with a preview of three of the four European play-off games. We’ll be looking at the Republic of Ireland vs France in depth tomorrow, but in the mean time here is what you can expect from the other games.
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Africa is the last qualifying zone that still has to finish off its group stages, and the final round of games are to be played this Saturday, with one team qualifying from each of the five groups. Here at The Football Blog, we get the opportunity to sound incredibly cosmopolitan by filling you in about the latest developments in the African qualifiers and predict which African teams might make a splash in South Africa next year.
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With most of the World Cup qualifying groups now decided, the list of the 32 participants at next summer’s tournament is almost complete. The matches at the weekend and last night provided a fitting climax to what has been an intriguing qualifying campaign. The Football Blog takes a look at what we’ve learnt over the past few days.
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England’s game against Belarus at Wembley this evening will be their final competitive game before the World Cup begins in South Africa next summer. Fabio Capello still has the opportunity to see his charges in action over the course of a series of friendlies, but there are some issues he will want to resolve sooner rather than later. The Football Blog takes a look.
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Owen Hargreaves is close to a return to action for Manchester United having missed the entirety of his side’s championship-winning exploits last season through injury. Arguably England’s player of the tournament at the 2006 World Cup, is there still a place for him in the United and England set up after such a long period on the sidelines?
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