Ok so this past weekend was filled with play-off football for the finals spots in the FIFA World Cup 2010 ... all the teams that are leading have a one goal lead and as many of you know from the Champions League, a one goal lead in the a European two-leg affair doesn't mean much ...
Portugal v. Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Portugal leads this leg 1-0 from the home victory where Bruno Alves (yes the defender) found himself in the box for an easy finish .. but Bosnia showed why they reached this far in qualifying and the last 10 mins was a barrage on the Portugal goal with the post being the hero TWICE ... Bosnia still has a chance in this match with the quality that they have in the squad in Edin Dzeko, Miralem Pjanic, and Zvjezdan Misimovic ... the Portuguese will play the 2nd leg without Ronaldo and will be looking for Nani and Simao to get the attack going...
Ireland vs. France
- France got the victory in Dublin on Saturday due to a deflected strike from Nicolas Anelka. many may have expected the French to go on and kill of the Irish but the "Bhoys in Green" showed the typical Irish fight ... the 2nd leg in Paris is going to be very interesting with Ireland needing to attack, in that case the French can pick them off in a simple counter attack (we all know they have the quality to do that) .. its should be a good game..
Ukraine vs. Greece
- the first leg ended in a 0-0 draw in the Greek capital of Athens ... I never watched this game but based off of the reports, Ukraine had 9 men defending and Andrey Shevchenko up front alone.. also what i gathered was that the Greek men were pressuring and pressuring but the Ukraine defense just absorbed the attack .. the 2nd leg may is going to be a very very interesting one because Ukraine NEED to attack and Greece may get the away goal ... Kiev a city surrounding the news in recent weeks due to the H1N1 outbreak, FIFA will go ahead with the match on Wednesday ..
Russia vs. Slovenia
- Russia came out 2-1 winners in Moscow on Saturday, two strikes from Dinyar Bilyaletdinov gave the Russians the 2-0 lead but a collapse in the last 10mins brought Slovenians back in the tie, the last 10mins was a struggle for Russia as it looked like they would give up their 2 advantage ... Russia is expected to go on and finish of the job but they Slovens may make it very difficult for them ...
to me anything can go down in the 2nd legs because there may be some things that are going through the player's heads and some outside circumstances that may cause a distraction...
but with all that going on in Europe, if u have any match to watch on that afternoon i would watch the sudden death playoff between Egypt and Algeria ... in a very rare circumstance, the Egyptians beat Algeria 2-0 in the final game of group play in their qualifying ... setting up one of the most interesting cases in a long time ... with Egypt winning by THAT scoreline ... goal difference, goals scored, goals against, head to head, games won, lost and drew ... any tiebreaker you can think of they are dead even on... besides the football side of things, there are a lot of outside agents that add the intensity to this match ... this sudden death match will be played in Sudan (neutral venue) where all the marbles with be going to one country..
as i said earlier, if you have some time to watch any of the matches watch this one Egypt vs. Algeria ..
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