Reuters Soccer Blog

Is seeding the World Cup play-offs playing fair?

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?

All and nothing for U.S soccer fans

This weekend soccer fans in the United States will, as usual, be able to take their pick from scores of games, from all over the world, broadcast on television. The country has two soccer-only television channels – Fox Soccer Channel and Gol TV, as well as soccer providing sports networks such as ESPN and Setanta (still alive in North America) and of course Spanish language broadcasters keep the Hispanic communities well supplied with soccer from south of the border.So, from Saturday’s World Cup qualifying games, the U.S. based fan with cable or satellite could pick from Bahrain v New Zealand, Russia v Germany, Portugal v Hungary, Mexico v El Salvador, Greece v Latvia etc etc. Add in pay-per-view internet providers such as Omnisport and you can catch plenty more games from Europe and South America.There is one game you won’t be able to watch in America though — the United States’ penultimate World Cup qualifier away to Honduras on Saturday. If the U.S win they qualify for South Africa but amazingly the game is not available on television or (legally at least) on the internet.The bizarre situation has come about due to the decision of the holders of the rights to Honduras’ home games to sell the U.S rights to a provider of closed circuit television. The result is that if you want to watch the game you will have to find a bar or a club that has paid the rights fee and has the closed circuit feed. (A list of those venues is here)”We are certainly disappointed for our fans,” said U.S coach Bob Bradley, “We’re very fortunate that whenever we go anywhere there are passionate U.S. supporters wearing colors. Certainly the idea that this match is not on regular TV is disappointing for all of them, and we understand and feel badly about that.”The players at training camp this week have been careful not to speak out too strongly about the situation — rightly or wrongly the affair doesn’t look good for the U.S Soccer Federation even though they don’t have control of the rights to away games. But the players must be hugely disappointed to be battling for qualification against a talented Honduran team knowing that just a tiny fraction of their fan base is able to watch them.Some England fans have been up in arms about their team’s game in Ukraine only being available (for less than the price of two pints of flat London beer) on the internet. England have, of course, already qualified for the World Cup but can you imagine the outcry if that game was decisive and was not even viewable on the web?Of course, if soccer had a stronger standing in the U.S, the television networks would have fought for the rights to the game and outbid the closed circuit operator and the problem wouldn’t have arisen.While it is harsh to blame anyone in U.S soccer for an affair that is out of their control, the farcical situation is a reminder that for all the progress the sport has made in the country in the past decade there is still a long way to go before the game is truly mass market.But is there not a question for FIFA here? Should the sports’ global governing body not have a ruling that World Cup games at least be available on easily accessible television?  The only winners in this situation are a little known closed circuit tv provider – it can’t be good for the game.In the meantime, for this reporter in Miami, a re-run of Burnley v Birmingham City is about to start on Setanta and I’ll have to find out if that Honduran social club, 30 minutes drive away, is definitely going to be showing the U.S game….

Why Norway look doomed in World Cup playoff race

Europe’s 53 national teams have been split into nine groups with the winners of each qualifying directly for South Africa. The best eight runners-up will play off among themselves over two legs next month for the remaining four slots. The runner-up with the worst record will miss out on a playoff berth entirely.

Usually, deciding the worst runners-up would be a simple case of comparing the respective team records. But there is one small snag — namely Group Nine, which has only five teams while all the others have six sides.

Somebody in FIFA then had a brainwave: in the groups with six teams, the results against the last-placed team will not count when it comes to deciding the eight best runners-up.

This little gem means we have to wait to find out who is going to finish bottom of Groups One to Eight before we can even think about who might be the worst runner up. It also means that losing a match to the bottom team could ultimately benefit a side finishing in second place, as they would not have so many points lopped off their final tally.

Group Nine, which is the group of five, has already finished with Norway taking second spot with only 10 points. For what it is worth, we at the Reuters Soccer Blog believe they could be the unlucky ones. It looks as if, whoever finishes second in the other groups, all will have at least 11 points, regardless of who finishes bottom. Here’s why:

Group One: Second-placed Sweden already have 15 points (they will lose six from their two wins over Malta, who are almost certain to finish bottom) and should pick up three more at home to Albania in their last game. Leaders Denmark have 18 points. (Portugal or Hungary could also reach 19 points in this group).

Group Two: Greece, currently second with 14 points, should reach 17 points by beating Luxemburg at home. Even if they lose six points, that will mean they will still be better off than Norway (as will any team who overtakes them).

South Korea rejects North Korea poisoning claim

South Korea has rejected claims by North Korea that it poisoned its players before last week’s 2010 World Cup qualifier in Seoul, as tensions mounted over the North’s long-range rocket launch on Sunday.

Kim Joo-sung, (South) Korean Football Association (KFA) international affairs chief, said the accusations were politically motivated and baseless.

“The statement sets a high political tone, not about the sport itself. There’s no need to respond to it,” Kim was quoted as saying by South Korean news agency Yonhap on Monday.

“If an accident happens during training or transit, and it affects the match, the host country should take responsibility for the accident. But matters related to hotels or the food are the responsibility of the visiting team.”

Six reasons for Argentina’s 6-1 defeat to Bolivia

Argentine media allocate dozens of pages to football daily and the country has two 24-hour cable channels almost exclusively dedicated to the sport. Quite often it’s a struggle to fill all that paper and airtime — so much so that one of the TV channels passes away the afternoon with a programme in which the presenters play foot-tennis.

But on Thursday, there was more than enough to talk about. How did Argentina, supposedly revitalised by Diego Maradona, lose 6-1 away to Bolivia, one of the region’s weakest teams, in a World Cup qualifier?

Reuters Soccer Blog has come up with six possible reasons, listed in no particular order:

(1) Altitude. Considered the main culprit by many. Most people struggle to walk uphill on their first day in arriving in La Paz, at 3,600 metres above sea level. It is quite common to wake up during the night with a suffocating feeling and the general consensus is that roughly three weeks are needed for full acclimatisation. So imagine playing 90 minutes of football as soon as your arrive.

(2) The players. Argentina’s players had a collective off day. As Maradona said: “We were outplayed in every part of the field.” Angel di Maria, scorer of the winning goal in last year’s Olympic soccer final against Nigeria, was sent off after only seven minutes.

(3) Maradona. Since taking over last October, the coach has talked endlessly about commitment, work rate and the importance of The Shirt. On Wednesday, however, he did not seem to have done his homework. He played down the altitude factor, telling his players: “Bolivia are the opponents, not the altitude.” The team flew in two hours before kick off and Maradona started with nine players who played against Venezuela five days earlier. Chile, in contrast, spent over a week in a high altitude training camp before visiting La Paz earlier in the campaign. They won 2-1.

Ukraine overawed by (lack of) Wembley atmosphere

Ukraine coach Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko said his players had been overawed by the Wembley atmosphere in their 2-1 World Cup defeat by England but their nerves must have been based on the twin-towered mystique of the old stadium rather than the soulless feeling of the new.

At a cost of 800 million pounds ($1.15 billion), the new Wembley undoubtedly looks impressive and there was no hint of the credit crunch as the wine flowed in the packed private dining suites before the game.

Out in the seats, however, any hope of building a rip-roaring atmosphere before the game continues to be undone by the FA’s obsession with deafening announcements.

In the 30 minutes before kick off on Wednesday fans were treated to a spoof comedy show involving the England players, a lengthy film pleading for respect for referees in amateur football — including the chance to receive the FA’s own guide to parental behaviour — and pleas for the fans to respect the national anthems.

There were also the obligatory sales pitches for the new England kit, available now for “just 50 pounds ($72.76).

By the time the players kicked off, the near-90,000 supporters in the stadium appeared to be relishing the peace rather than getting behind their heroes (although Wayne Rooney said he was happy enough with the noise).

Can the Balkans do a World Cup quadruple?

Soccer leagues in the Balkans are suffering from an uncontrolled outflow of talent to wealthier and more competitive environments in Europe and it’s a trend that’s benefiting some of the region’s national teams.

At least three countries that emerged from the former Yugoslavia stand a good chance of reaching next year’s World Cup in South Africa.

Serbia, who tightened their grip on Group Seven with a 3-2 win over neighbours Romania, are in the best position after a masterclass performance by Manchester United centre-back Nemanja Vidic and captain Dejan Stankovic, plying his trade at Italian champions Inter Milan.

Serbia have only two home-based players in their squad, which has been given a new lease of life under coach Radomir Antic in their bid to reach a first major tournament as an independent nation.

Even more impressive were Serbia’s bitter Balkan foes Bosnia, who demolished Belgium 4-2 and have an excellent chance of securing a play-off spot in Group Five, where European champions Spain seem untouchable.

The Bosnians, also aiming for a maiden World Cup appearance, are reaping the benefits of having experienced exiles such as Eintracht Frankfurt striker Zlatan Bajramovic, Zvjezdan Misimovic and his 22-year old Wolfsburg team-mate Edin Dzeko, who all scored in their surprise success in Genk.

Croatia may not be able to leapfrog England into the driving seat in Group Six but they should also win a play-off berth available to the eight best second-placed teams.

Ivory Coast stadium crush leaves at least 19 dead

Tragic news from Abidjan, where officials say at least 19 people were killed in a stampede at an overcrowded stadium during a World Cup qualifier between Ivory Coast and Malawi.

“We have 19 dead and many seriously injured,” a military source at the stadium said. The crush occurred after part of a wall collapsed when ticketless fans stormed one of the entrances to the 45,000-capacity Houphouet-Boigny arena in the West African country’s main city, Abidjan.

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