Who Will Be Booking Their Ticket to Brazil This Week?
Unfortunately for all of us football fans, all domestic leagues are on hold yet again this weekend for International play. Some are just friendlies, but there are still a few juicy world cup qualifiers to look forward to. For UEFA, on Friday, France is playing the Ukraine while Portugal will be matched up against Sweden. Both sides will also meet again on Tuesday to finish up this playoff round. So the question is why am I to be excited about this?
The countries that emerge victorious from this playoff round will book themselves a ticket to Brazil in 2014, while the losers will be watching it on television at home along with the rest of us. A few other countries are involved in the playoffs for UEFA these next few days, as well as in other conferences around the world; however, these two match ups are definitely the most interesting. If France lose, we won’t be seeing the likes of Franck Ribery, Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri, or Oliver Giroud in Brazil, and the other match up of course speaks for itself. Who will be in Brazil, Cristiano Ronaldo or Zlatan Ibrahimovic?
France are going up against a Ukraine side that shouldn’t be written off too quickly; it will be by no means an easy match. Especially for France, who hasn’t been a stranger to struggling internationally in the past few years. Not only did they barely make it past Ireland to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, I’m sure we all remember the controversy from that game, it was the handball that was heard around the world.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only bit of controversy that France would be involved in, I’m sure we also all remember the team refusing to train. It was unbelievable, but at the same time I loved it, I couldn’t believe what I was reading at times, it was like a real life Soap Opera unfolding in the French camp right before our very eyes. I personally like the French team, they have a lot of attitude, but a lot of talent is on that squad as well. I hope to see them in Brazil.
The next match is the big one, Ronaldo, or Ibra. Who will go? Portugal also struggled to qualify for the 2010 World Cup and have found themselves in the same boat again. Both nations have huge stars at the helm, but I really think its going to come down to the support around them that determines who will qualify. I would put my money on Portugal – not only is Ronaldo having an exceptional year so far, he’s got players like Nani and Pepe along side him to help. Ibra is a great player as well, but I don’t think that Sweden is up to par with the Portuguese style of play.
When all of this is over we’ll be one step closer to Brazil! More importantly though, we’ll be going back to club play!
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