Monday 1 August 2011

Tough World Cup draws for home nations

The World Cup in 2014 in Brazil seems an awfully long time away. In Europe qualification for next year’s European Championship hasn’t even reached the business end of operations. Yet the draw for the qualifying groups for the 2014 World Cup took place on Saturday.

England found themselves in a pretty tough group, with tricky trips to Eastern Europe in Ukraine and Poland, as well as Moldova, together with Montenegro, who are proving tougher than expected in the Euro qualifiers, and minnows San Marino. If Fabio Capello though his stint as England manager was awkward, then he’ll be delighted that he’s leaving the hot seat before those trips come up!
As well as facing each other, Scotland and Wales have another pair who’ll have their own neighbourhood squabble – Croatia and Serbia – as well as Belgium and Macedonia. Qualification looks unlikely.
Northern Ireland have a couple of teams that they should beat – Azerbaijan and Luxembourg – but with Russia and Portugal heading the seedings, they’ll need something like a miracle to qualify. Israel make up the six.
Spain got the toughest non-top seeds in France, but there’s nothing at the moment that will worry the Spaniards.
Qualification goes directly to the eight group winners, and the eight runners-up are paired (no doubt on a whim by FIFA) in four play-off matches.

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