World Cup Qualifying Preview

I should say from the outset - if you don’t like football geekery, you're probably going to find the next 600 words very boring. Have a look at some of my pictures instead...

On Saturday, despite most Brazilian stadia currently consisting of muddy fields and tutting trade union officials, the draw will be made for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers. The pots, decided via the watertight, inarguable science of the FIFA World Rankings, are listed below:

A: Spain, Netherlands, Germany, England, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Norway, Greece

B: France, Montenegro, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Slovenia, Turkey, Serbia, Slovakia

C: Switzerland, Israel, Ireland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary

D: Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Lithuania, Albania, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Austria, Poland

E: Armenia, Finland, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Moldova, Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Faroe Islands

F: Wales, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra, San Marino

From these, 13 nations will advance to the finals. The exact way it’s decided is quite boring, so if you really care that much, I’ve explained at the bottom of the article, but essentially it’s the nine group winners plus four runners up which are decided from play-offs.

There are a couple of surprises in the pots – France, in pot B, have slipped below Norway and Greece, partly because of a disastrous 2010 World Cup which was even worse than England’s, but now Mystic Meg wannabe Raymond Domenech has left, they will undoubtedly be a strong force again. Alongside them, Montenegro, in the second-to-bottom group for the Euro qualifiers simply because they were at the time a new state, have found their rightful place.

If Raymond Domenech is French football’s enemy, then Jakup Emil Hansen should be Wales’, with the Faroese student spotting (somehow) the tiniest mistake in FIFA’s calculations which pushed his homeland above the Welsh in the rankings, and crucially into the higher pot.

It seems ridiculous that a team containing Aaron Ramsey, Craig Bellamy and Gareth Bale ranks alongside Europe’s bottomfeeders, but that’s how it’s ended up and Gary Speed faces an even harder task than usual this time round. Whilst we are in pot F, Borat should be having a long hard look at himself too – the Kazakh population of 16 million shamefully being around 500 times that of higher-ranked Liechtenstein.

Anyway, there are 52,488 possible groups for England to be drawn into, and here are some possibilities. It would of course be easy to just pick the first and last teams from each pot, but this wouldn’t take into account the failings of FIFA’s rankings – teams such as Ukraine and Poland being artificially low due to a lack of competitive action – or similarly the failings of England, who can struggle against other home nations or a certain breed of former Soviet republic.

Best for England: England, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania, Azerbaijan, San Marino.

Worst for England: England, France, Czech Republic, Romania, Macedonia, Wales

Most Exciting: England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Cyprus, Wales

Most Boring: England, Montenegro, Belarus, Lithuania, Finland, Iceland

Best for Wales: Norway, Montenegro, Hungary, Northern Ireland, Faroe Islands, Wales

Worst for Wales: Spain, France, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Finland, Wales

*If you must know: there will be eight groups of six teams, with one each from pots A to F, and one group of five teams, one each from pots A to E. Russia and Georgia cannot be drawn together, and neither can Armenia and Azerbaijan due to political tensions. The nine group winners will advance straight to the finals with the eight best runners up (not including games against the bottom team in the group), going into four two-legged play-off ties, the winners from which will also be going to Brazil, giving a grand total of 13 European teams at the finals. Was that really worth it?

More articles for football fans with too much free time:
Joe Hart and 21 Others
From the Banks of the River Severn 

Joe Hart and 21 Others (Part Three)

You can find Part One here, and Part Two here...

Now, after scouring many different levels of football from Shawbury United to Barcelona, just two players remain. In true football programme spirit, the first of those has ‘Played for both clubs!’: Ramon Calliste, who rather hilariously was named the 87^th best young footballer in the world by Spanish magazine Don Balon in 2001 – a list which also put Djibril Cissé top and Jermaine Pennant 5^th. Kaká is 95^th.  Calliste was discarded by United and then Liverpool and Scunthorpe, and was at Cambridge City when Paul Simpson offered him a trial in January 2009. This didn’t lead anywhere, and as Calliste afterwards tried his luck at Lincoln, Town signed goal-machine and fan-favourite Jamie Cureton on loan. Or something like that. Calliste has since disappeared from the football world.

All better than Kaká

Perhaps the most unusual career of any player featuring in this match is that of Ben Collett. A promising midfielder who scored in the aforementioned FA Youth Cup final in 2003, Collett won the Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year trophy that season, following in the footsteps of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil Neville, and of course John Curtis and Ronnie Wallwork. Recent winners include Danny Welbeck, Giuseppe Rossi and Federico Macheda. 

Just a week after the cup final, United’s reserves played Middlesbrough’s, when a crippling tackle from Boro midfielder Gary Smith destroyed Collett’s leg. Collett never properly recovered, playing a few non-descript reserve matches such as this one against Shrewsbury and having brief spells in New Zealand and the Dutch second division, and ultimately the tackle ended his career. A three month court battle finished in August 2008 with a £4.5m payout following testimonies from Gary Neville, Brian McClair, Howard Wilkinson and Sir Alex Ferguson, who described Collett as showing “fantastic focus, a great attitude to work hard and they are qualities to give any player an outstanding chance in the game."

Collett has been lucky to be rewarded with such a handsome payout, but the court accounted for a relatively small £13,000 weekly wage until the age of 35. If he had progressed to the England side and the Man United first team, he would surely be earning more than sixty or seventy thousand per week now, still only 26. It is of course difficult to predict his career – going back to the previous winners of the Jimmy Murphy award he could have been a Paul Scholes or a Ronnie Wallwork. Either way, it’s always a shame when a young talent gets so unfairly extinguished, and no one will ever know what might have been. Following the hearing, with the judge praising his intelligence and commitment, Collett went on to study English at the University of Leeds, where he has probably had to spend three years thinking up excuses to avoid buying every round of drinks.

To the game itself!

With Ross Stephens taking Ryan Lowe’s place on the left wing, town lined up in a 3-5-2 formation. Joe Hart, at 17 years old, had a couple of dodgy early moments in the Town goal and a sliced clearance led to a corner from which Gerard Piqué beat Jamie Tolley to nod in for an early lead. After some Town pressure, Tolley equalised on 23 minutes with a fine low drive before putting in Ross Stephens, who spurned the chance to put Town ahead.

On the half hour mark, Dave Edwards suffered a knock and was replaced by Marco Adaggio. The United contingent panicked as they tried to create a plan to stop this skilled maestro, probably using tactics the first team had been working on to stop Thierry Henry.  It paid off as five minutes later Colin Heath nodded home a David Poole cross from close range.

Shortly after the break Jake Sedgemore committed the cardinal lower-league sin of thinking rather than hoofing as he tried to play one of those fancy Dan offside traps, which obviously failed and Heath ran through to score his second underneath Hart. There were no mistakes on the hour mark though as Ramon Calliste scored with a brilliant solo effort to put United 4-1 up with the game effectively over. A fifth soon followed as Heath turned creator, sliding in Mads Timm to put the icing on the cake.

With the pressure off for both teams, Town finally got into the game with Tolley and Adaggio, the United defence probably realising that he’s not Ronaldinho, doing well to create space but missing chances. Tolley was involved in Town’s consolation however as his thunderous strike came back off the crossbar for Robert Eggington to tap in.

A crowd of 822 watched United win 5-2, a huge total for a reserve fixture. I’ve not checked, but I would be surprised if there has ever been a higher attendance for a reserve game at Town, in recent times at least – although thousands did go to the Buck’s Head a few years ago to watch Steven Gerrard come back from injury against Wolves Reserves.

In the return fixture at Hyde United’s ground in January 2005, Town lost 3-0 to a United side including Giuseppe Rossi, who scored, and future Town midfielder Steven Hogg. David Fox and another from Ramon Calliste completed the scoring. United rather predictably won the Pontins League that season from Carlisle and Blackpool, with Town languishing in 10^th, taking 21 points from 22 games in the 12 team league.

	pld	w	d	l	f	a	pts
1. Manchester United	22	14	5	3	49	28	47
2. Carlisle United	22	13	3	6	43	36	42
3. Blackpool	22	12	4	6	34	21	40
4. Oldham Athletic	22	12	3	7	48	34	39
5. Bury	22	10	7	5	30	23	37
6. Macclesfield Town	22	8	7	7	31	27	31
7. Burnley	22	5	11	6	24	21	26
8. Chester City	22	7	3	12	25	37	24
9. Stockport County	22	5	7	10	28	37	22
10. Shrewsbury Town	22	5	6	11	25	31	21
11. Rochdale	22	4	6	12	23	38	18
12. Wrexham	22	6	0	16	27	54	18

Reserve football has many cons and few pros, but the sheer variation in quality, reputation and experience of players even on the same team is unmatched anywhere else in the sport. Only fans of obscure football trivia could argue against Graham Turner’s withdrawal of a proper reserve side for Shrewsbury this season, in favour of ad-hoc games against local opposition with similar requirements. The benefits of a guaranteed standard of playing surface, reduced travel and no obligation to field a side each week outweigh the chance of the supposed competitive football which in reality, reserve fixtures don’t really provide.

So, from the players taking to the pitch that night at Gay Meadow, some are now managers, a couple grace the Premier League, some play at the very foot of the English pyramid, one plays in front of 90,000 adoring Catalans at the Nou Camp, one has an English degree and a presumably very comfortable student lifestyle, some play abroad, four for their country, and a couple have sunk without trace. Clubs ranging from Deeping Rangers to Barcelona are represented, with payment from a fiver for expenses to £100,000 per week. But thanks to the quirky and underappreciated nature of second-string football, they all shared the same turf that one night in 2004.