Franck Ribery’s knee injury has flared up again and the problem could not have come at a worse time for Bayern Munich.

Ribery picked up the injury in pre-season training at the height of Real Madrid’s efforts to sign him.

He has played only a handful of matches, his last three weeks ago, and now he is out again, for at least a month, maybe more. He will likely miss France’s World Cup qualification play-off against Ireland and by the time he returns for Bayern there won’t be many matches left before the long mid-season break.

This raises the question: does anyone at Bayern regret not selling the player to Real?

They could certainly have done without another injury saga. Frustrated 30-million-euro striker Mario Gomez has been relegated to the bench, Dutchman Arjen Robben and Mark van Bommel are only just recovering from injury, Anatoliy Tymoshchuk is reportedly unhappy in Munich and emotions seem to be running high after Thomas Mueller and Daniel van Buyten were both sent off in the Champions League defeat by Bordeaux this week.

It is not the start coach Louis van Gaal had envisaged. So would they they have been better off with Ribery sold to Real and many millions in the bank?

PHOTO: Bayern Munich’s midfielder Franck Ribery reacts during the Champions League game against Juventus in Munich September 30, 2009. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

Draw for the European World Cup playoffs:

Republic of Ireland v France
Portugal v Bosnia-Herzegovina
Greece v Ukraine
Russia v Slovenia

Two-legged ties to be played on Nov 14 and 18.

Is that the sound of a World Cup playoff shock I hear? France, 2006 runners-up, will have to beat Giovanni Trapattoni’s Ireland over two legs to reach South Africa next year and that is no easy feat.

The Irish were unbeaten in qualifying and drew with world champions Italy twice while with Trapattoni as coach they have the wiliest of wily foxes, whatever you think of his English.
 
We talked a lot on this blog about the controversy over seedings but it would be hard to separate Greece and Ukraine on paper let alone on the field.

Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo struggled in qualifying and just scraped the playoffs so let’s not discount proud Bosnia yet. Is Guus Hiddink destined for another World Cup with Russia? Let us know what you think in the comments.

PHOTO: France team, Oct 14. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

So now we know which European teams are in the World Cup playoffs and we have a pretty good idea of the seedings, though FIFA’s updated rankings out at the end of the week will provide confirmation ahead of Monday’s draw.

It looks like Russia, France, Greece and Portugal will be the seeded teams with Ukraine, Ireland, Bosnia and Slovenia playing them. After Argentina’s qualification in the final match against Uruguay, it looks increasingly likely that all the big teams will be there in South Africa.

But four days on from my blog on Sunday, the decision to seed the Euroepan teams in the qualifiers doesn’t look any fairer.

Doctor Mario, in a comment on that blog, said seeding was a reward for credits earned but it will take a long time for a new nation like Slovenia to earn enough credits to start a qualifying campaign on a level playing field.

That’s one of the reasons why it tends to be the same old faces making it to the finals. If you are Italy, France, Germany or Spain you know that in your qualifying group will have no other “elite team”, just a couple of second or third tier nations and some also-rans.

If you are someone like Wales, Israel or Finland you know you will have to pull off a series of upset wins even to finish second in your group. And if you do it your reward is to be seeded in the bottom half again in the playoffs.

How much help do France need? If they are not good enough to win a group comprising Serbia, Austria, Lithuania, Romania and the Faroe Islands where is the justice in giving them another helping hand in the playoffs?

They didn’t make the World Cup in 1994 and I don’t remember too many people complaining about a degraded tournament.

In fact Bulgaria, who qualified ahead of them and had a particularly woeful World Cup record, produced some of the most memorable moments of the finals as they went all the way to the semi-finals. Four years later, France won the World Cup.

The 1970 World Cup is many people’s choice as the best-ever tournament — it’s hard to see how it would have been enhanced had Argentina been there.

There is no asterix alongside the results of the 1974 and 78 finals saying * Note: England failed to qualify.

Everyone is saying that Portugal, and Cristiano Ronaldo, should be there next year because the best players should be seen on the world stage, but Portugal have played in only four of the 18 World Cups. They are hardly a fixture.

And where was the help for Ryan Giggs, George Best or George Weah, whose lowly-seeded teams never made it through.

And anyway, it’s not the point. It’s FIFA’s unexpected introduction of the seeding that has so angered so many people. If they thought that was the fairest way then they should have enshrined it in the regulations at the start of qualifying, shouldn’t they?

PHOTO: Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo reacts after being injured against Hungary during their 2010 World Cup qualifying soccer match at Luz stadium in Lisbon October 10, 2009. REUTERS/Marcos Borga

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and for every FIFA marketing slogan there is a subsequent decision that can make fans wonder if world football’s governing body is being serious.

“Fair Play Please” is the current favourite but how, exactly, does that square with the decision to make the European zone World Cup playoffs a seeded affair?

Nowhere in the acres of pre-qualifying regulations was there a suggestion that the playoffs would be seeded but now the good people of Zurich have realised that some of the biggest names in the game could be involved in the November home and away matches, the new rule has been presented as a fait accompli.

So the eight teams in the playoffs will be seeded according to their FIFA ranking — conveniently avoiding the prospect of France playing, say, Portugal and one of the continent’s big guns being forced to miss out.

Unsurprisingly, the decision was not welcomed by the likes of Ireland – into the playoffs but likely to be seeded in the “bottom half”.

Bosnia were too busy celebrating making the playoffs on Saturday to worry about their structure but wouldn’t they be right in thinking they deserve as much a chance of facing, say, Greece or Slovenia as Russia or France?

The nine group winners got their reward in automatic qualification. Shouldn’t the best eight second-place teams (Norway look set to be the unlucky ninth-best runners-up who will miss out altogether) be left to take their chances having, in some cases, overcome tough seeding in the group the first time round to make it this far?

The arrival of bright new teams, and the chance for unfamiliar players to make names for themselves on the biggest stage of all, help keep the World Cup fresh and exciting. If the rules just make it more likely that the Big Boys always make it, the worry must be that the game and the tournament will end up being the loser.

PHOTO: Ireland’s Liam Lawrence reacts after their 2010 World Cup qualifying soccer match against Italy at Croke Park Stadium in Dublin October 10, 2009. REUTERS/Darren Staples

I've been scouting around for some sporting April Fools but I've not spotted many good ones.

Maybe some websites and blogs have held off on the jokes given the state of the world economy is no laughing matter.

Gazzetta dello Sport's French football blog Sotto La Tour Eiffel says Zinedine Zidane will come out of retirement to play for Marseille.

Have you seen any better April Fools? We are assuming of course that Alan Shearer is really going to manage Newcastle United. However, there has been no official confirmation so far...

Thierry Henry did not enjoy the happiest of starts to his new life in Barcelona but it’s clicked for the Frenchman this term.

He plays more as a winger than a striker under Pep Guardiola yet he’s still managed 15 league goals this season and the Premier League certainly seems a poorer place without him.

Click on the video above to see Owen Wyatt emerge blinking into the Canary Wharf sunlight to discuss Henry’s current form, and why you shouldn’t leave your car parked anywhere near the Barcelona training ground.

And if you’ve got any thoughts on Henry please let us know in the comments or, if you’re feeling adventurous, in a vlog of your own. Personally, I put his return to form down to cooking and Cluedo.

After a foray into the mix zone after the English League Cup final, the injured Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe replied to one journalist who asked him why he had cut all his hair off.

“I had to, I only ever seem to get injured when I have longer hair,” he said.

I am neither a hairdresser nor a medical man but I thought this was a bizarre theory, but perhaps a lengthy spell on the sidelines makes you think this way?

Defoe’s superstition was the second recent football oddity to have grabbed my attention after Arsenal’s Kolo Toure received an unnecessary yellow card in the Champions League tie against Roma.

The Ivory Coast defender failed to ask the referee for permission to enter the pitch after missing the kick-off at the start of the second half.

Toure’s delayed entrance was because he waited for team mate William Gallas to finish receiving treatment so he could maintain his routine of being the last man to leave the dressing room.

Despite this odd behaviour from the two Premier League players, my favourite football superstition remains Laurent Blanc’s serial smooching of goalkeeper Fabien Barthez’s head prior to each match in France’s victorious 1998 World Cup run.

Unless you can come up with another to change my mind?

PHOTO: Tottenham Hotspur’s Jermain Defoe celebrates scoring against Portsmouth during their English Premier League match at White Hart Lane in London Jan. 18, 2009. REUTERS/Kieran Doherty

Sportspeople have been shifting nationalities to suit their careers for years, and most of it has been legal.

Controversies have occurred, however, with the latest incident again happening in French soccer.

The French League (LFP) has contacted the Italian authorities to investigate the legitimacy of the dual nationality passports held by Argentine players in Ligue 1, an LFP source has told Reuters.

Julien Pretot writes that the source said passports belonging to Bordeaux’s Fernando Cavenaghi and Diego Placente, Toulouse’s Mauro Cetto and Olympique Marseille’s Renato Civelli, who all have dual Italian nationality, were being looked at.

The paper work is obviously complex, but why do these issues generally arise after the event rather than when players initially sign?

PHOTO: Chelsea’s Jose Boswinga (R) challenges Bordeaux’s Diego Placente during their Champions League Group A match at Stamford Bridge Sept. 16, 2008. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

Portsmouth are interested in bringing Inter Milan’s Patrick Vieira back to England.

The only problem is that the former Arsenal man is injured…again. 

I’ve been the Reuters sports correspondent in Milan for nearly two years and I have interviewed Vieira more times than I have seen him play live.

A catalogue of knocks has led many fans to forget one of the most-powerful midfield players in a generation. 

The 32-year-old admitted last week that he may not play for France much longer.

When he has turned out for Inter, he has looked a shadow of the long-legged, rampaging figure we all remember from his Arsenal days.

Even if he gets fully fit, he is no longer guaranteed a start in Inter’s first team and coach Jose Mourinho rarely laments his unavailability. (Fellow Inter benchwarmer Marco Materazzi has also been linked in the media with Tottenham.)

A move back to England at some point could re-energise Vieira’s career but if his weary limbs can not be fixed, he will never be the player he once was.

PHOTO: Inter’s Vieira fights for the ball with AC Milan’s Ronaldinho in the city derby, Sept. 28 REUTERS/Tony Gentile

If you don’t mind the sight of St Etienne glued near the bottom of the Ligue 1 table, you did not grow up in France in the 1970s.

Everybody there then had two teams, their own and Les Verts (The Greens). Even today, many fans of other sides have a soft spot for the team from a small industrial town near Lyon.

Why? Simply because France, where football is not part of the popular culture, fell in love with the beautiful game courtesy of St Etienne’s European Cup saga in 1976.

An unglamorous outfit featuring players who had worked in the city’s factories, they went all the way to the final, losing to Bayern Munich in Glasgow. And many people will tell you they only lost because Hampden Park was the only place in the world at that time, apart from maybe some pitch in Kazakhstan, to still have square, wooden posts instead of round, metal ones.

The St Etienne players hit that archaic woodwork twice and the ball bounced off it. Had the posts been round, like at every civilised stadium outside Scotland, they would have gone in. No doubt.

That year, green fever was everywhere, with Les Verts’ stupid fan song playing on the radio all the time. But St Etienne are not just about that.

They have won a record 10 French titles, were graced by such great players as Michel Platini, Johnny Rep and Dominique Bathenay (don’ t say who?, he was my favourite). And the stadium, called Geoffroy-Guichard but only known as the Cauldron, was like no other place on earth. It could really burn in there.
 
Then came a financial scandal, spells in the second division and the rise of neighbours and arch-rivals Olympique Lyon, now the measure of all things in France, just to make matters worse.

Football has entered another era and moved away from its working-class roots, not to mention tight, shiny shirts and tiny shorts.

St Etienne today have two chairmen, who occasionally argue and have just posted a statement on the club’s website saying coach Laurent Roussey’s fate depends on the outcome of the side’s next two home matches.

“We’re not stupid and we can read,” midfielder Geoffrey Dernis told reporters. “We all know what’s going on and it’s not easy. The toughest part will be not being afraid when we enter the pitch.”

Once upon a time, Les Verts did not fear anyone in their Cauldron and their only feeling when playing there was pride.

PHOTO: Bafetimbi Gomis (C) of St Etienne celebrates with Geoffrey Dernis (L) and Blaise Matuidi (R) after scoring against Hapoel Tel Aviv during their UEFA Cup soccer match at the Geoffroy Guichard stadium in Saint-Etienne Oct 2, 2008. REUTERS/Robert Pratta