Oh my god! Who’s in the World Cup after yesterday? Who isn’t? I’m scared!
First, breathe.
Second, go here if you want to know where we’re at in global qualification, everything you need to know is in this excellent entry. It reads tremendously well and is pretty well curated. If you want to scan specific results, go here and navigate. For a handy Guardian summary of what happened, go there.
If you want the short gist, England are through after beating Poland at Wembley, Bosnia-Herzegovina are in for the first time, Denmark was the only second place team in the European qualification groups to miss out on the playoffs because they finished last in points (all teams had points against the 6th place team deducted except for Group I which only had 5 teams), Ghana are likely through as they beat Egypt 6-1 yesterday but there is still a return leg to contend with in Cairo in November, Mexico was saved by the USA of all teams after the Americans scored two last minute goals against Panama which allowed Mexico to grab the final playoff spot despite losing to Costa Rica (man, Mexico sucks), and Uruguay squeaked through to the pro-forma intercontinental playoff against Jordan after beating Argentina 3-2 with a last minute divey penalty from Luis Suarez.
That’s a lotta football!
Any cool games from yesterday?
Lots! But the insane Sweden/Germany game takes the cake. Few could have imagined a repeat of last year’s incredible 4-4 draw in Berlin, and even though both teams had essentially gone through to the playoffs and World Cup respectively, they produced another game for the ages. Germany managed a 5-3 win and Andre Schurrle scored a hat-trick. We also got to see goals like this from the aforementioned German player:
And then earlier in the game this incredible dead ball sitch from Sweden’s Tobias Hysen:
Any football on today?
Seriously? GTFO. Copa Del Rey among the crap Spanish teams if you’re some sort of psycho.
What’s the big story?
Well, you know, Roy Hodgson feels pretty good about life right about now, at least until England lose a friendly and then plays that godawful two banks of four in Brazil, particularly as the team is unseeded and could be Spained right out of life in the early going.
But the real barn burner right now is the fisticuffs on the field between Wilfried Zaha and Ravel Morrison in an England U21 game against Lithuania, a 5-0 win. Morrison was already apparently cheesed because he’d been denied a chance at a hat-trick, which is the kind of youthful selfishness that makes you a little sad, maybe. Anyway, the Mail has about 500 blurry zoom-ups for your to peruse.
Any other interesting news?
Ozil’s injured, may not start for Arsenal against Norwich.
Also, Bob Bradley is still Egypt coach, for now.
Finally, Mario Balotelli can be very dense sometimes. From the Independent:
Italian football’s bad boy Mario Balotelli has been called “an imbecile” by a leading anti-mob campaigner after again hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons.
The AC Milan striker has provoked a storm by appearing to distance himself from an anti-mafia campaign involving a charity match in a ground sequestered from the Camorra, the notorious Naples crime syndicate.
You’ll have to read the rest to see why Balo comes off pretty badly.
Any good reads today?
James Horncastle is featured in this explanation for why Erick Thohir now owns Inter Milan. Very interesting summary.