Thetownend.com

Ex-Town front man, has just fired New Zealand to the World Cup, scoring the winner against Bahrain, in their play-off.  :D

Fair play.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/8360167.stm

Hope we get them in our group.

Yeh, they are really poor and would be a nice easy three points (should)

Just like T&T were...

exactly. Hence the nervous should but hey we probobly wont even get them, that would make it too easy for us

Someone has to say it-how I wish he was still here!

I wish he was still here, along with Sam Parkin, Simon Cox and Eric Sabin.. :chuckle:

It's a double for the Fallon family, as his father coached the NZ team in '82 which was the only other time they made it.

Fair play. Some achievement.

Although it has to be said that the Asian qualifiers must be some of the weakest?

how many ex-Town players could there be at the next World Cup then?

Rory Fallon for one obviously.

Milner and Carrick have a chance of making the England squad. Shay Given if Ireland get past France. Theo Walcott at a push. None of those were full time Pro's for us though...

The Asia / Oceania qualifying is a bit weird. Oceania only gets half a place (ie the winner has a playoff with a country from Asia). Australia were pissed at always fucking it up, so they switched to Asia qualifying as they thought it would be easier - which it was, as they've qualified. Leaving New Zealand a far easier route.

It still pisses me off that crap teams from other FIFA zones end up qualifying whilst far better teams in Europe don't due to the way places are allocated. Time for the World Cup to be extended again I reckon, go up to 40 countries and then have the 16 lowest ranked play in an extra round before the current first round.

The thing is that Australia moved from Oceania to Asia, due to the fact that it used to come down to 2 games against the 5th place from South America, which they used to narrowly lose. But having announced they were 'moving' they beat Uruguay to qualify for Germany.

Due to the fact the South Americans like having 5 teams at the WC (out of 9 who can), FIFA changed the play-offs, so the 5th side in South America now plays off with the 4th place in CONCACAF, which is the might of Costa Rica, and the winners of Oceania, now New Zealand, who beat the likes of Fiji and New Caledonia, plays off against the 5th team in Asia, which was Bahrain.

Oceania, who struggled to have one representative qualify, now has 2 with Australia, qualifying first out of Asia.

Talking about qualifiers the Egypt v Algeria game sounds like it's going to be a bit tasty...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8358365.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8350991.stm

The Algerians are running round with flags and chanting outside my flat in Finsbury Park. Has the game been played?

It literally all kicks-off at 5.30 GMT, so I think they are warming up.

You could at least tell them the game's being played in Cairo. That's one almighty cock-up by their travel agent

I bet they're not dancing now. Egypt beat Algeria 2-0, with the second in the FIFTH minute of injury time, which means they are level on goals scored, goal difference and head to head record, which means both sides have to face each other again on Wecnesday at a neutral venue to decide who goes to South Africa.

And just in case there wasn't enough potential for violence there, the "Neutral Venue" in question is in bloody Sudan!

You really cannot make that up. Someone at FIFA must be having a laugh.

Hameur Bouazza was on that bus that got bricked at Cairo airport.

I hear Nestor Lorenzo's pushing for a place in the Argentina team too. :D

Don't be surprised !!  Maradona picked over 60 players during the qualification process.

SSN are reporting that there will be 14,000 police on duty to keep both sets of supporters apart.

OOH wicked,about time we had another game that starts a war.None since Honduras V El Salvador in the seventies(that was in all the best football quizzes).

Is that all?

You'd have thought it would make more sense to deploy a NATO peace keeping task force.

Anyone want to run a sweep stake on the number of arrests / casualties / deaths around the world that are directly connected to the game? I have a feeling a rather large amount of shit is going to hit the fan, before, during and after the game.

Looks like the game is being shown on Eurosport tomorrow night from 6.30. It could be interesting...

NZ was on last night too. I got bored after 30 mins.

Also highlights of our 6-2 drubbing away to Everton were on ESPN classic last night..