By DAN KARELL
Win and you’re in.
That’s the situation that Roy Hodgson and the English National Team face on Tuesday when they face Poland at Wembley Stadium, with one of four automatic qualification places up for grabs Group H of UEFA World Cup qualifying.
In addition to England, Ukraine could take the top spot in that group with a win and an England loss or draw, making it crucially important for the Three Lions to take the three points. Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, France, and Russia, and also fighting for the other three automatic places remaining for Brazil 2014.
The busy day in international soccer begins in China with a friendly between Brazil and Zambia, includes exciting matches in Europe including Turkey vs. Netherlands and Sweden vs. Germany, with a great finish in the evening as Uruguay need a big win when they face Argentina and Costa Rica hope to send Mexico spiraling into the playoff round next month when the two meet in San Jose, Costa Rica.
If you will be watching today’s action, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.
Enjoy the action (Today’s TV schedule is after the jump):
7:45am – Brazil vs. Zambia – beIN Sport Play (beIN Sport USA at 2pm)
11:30am – Ghana vs. Egypt – beIN Sport USA/beIN Sport en Español
1pm – Greece vs. Liechtenstein – ESPN3
1pm – Cyprus vs. Albania – ESPN3
1pm – Azerbaijan vs. Russia – ESPN3
1pm – Israel vs. Northern Ireland – ESPN3
1pm – Portugal vs. Luxembourg – ESPN Deportes/ESPN3
2pm – Lithuania vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina – ESPN3
2pm – Switzerland vs. Slovenia – ESPN3
2pm – Hungary vs. Andorra – ESPN3
2pm – Turkey vs. Netherlands – ESPN3
2pm – Romania vs. Estonia – ESPN3
2:10pm – Latvia vs. Slovakia – ESPN3
2:15pm – Bulgaria vs. Czech Republic – ESPN3
2:30pm – Serbia vs. Macedonia – ESPN3
2:45pm – Sweden vs. Germany – GolTV USA
2:45pm – Italy vs. Armenia – RAI Internazionale
3pm – Spain vs. Georgia – ESPN Deportes/ESPN3
3pm – San Marino vs. Ukraine – ESPN3
3pm – Montenegro vs. Moldova – ESPN3
3pm – England vs. Poland – Fox Sports 1
3pm – Belgium vs. Wales – ESPN3
3pm – Scotland vs. Croatia – ESPN3
4pm – France vs. Finland – ESPN3
7:30pm – Uruguay vs. Argentina – beIN Sport USA
7:30pm – Paraguay vs. Colombia – beIN Sport Play
7:30pm – Chile vs. Ecuador – beIN Sport en Español
9:30pm – Jamaica vs. Honduras – beIN Sport en Español
9:30pm – Panama vs. USA – beIN Sport USA
9:30pm – Costa Rica vs. Mexico – Telemundo
10:15pm – Peru vs. Bolivia – beIN Sport Play
Suarez with a joke of a dive for a penalty. Also the sun came up today.
Yes i saw that, good game at 2-2 otherwise….
Uruguay 1 Argentina 0, its early though
bit the bullet, had to get BeIn Sports, even if for only 2 weeks. have to watch the Nats tonight and CONMEBOL qualifiers
Can someone please explain how Switzerland will be seeded in top 8 at the world cup?
That GERRARD goal will live on forever/
21 goals in 107 matches for ENGLAND. He may not have a PL trophy but so what
right… because it happened just now and it feels important, it should be ascribed historical significance…
off the top of my head (as a non-England fan) i can recite the Owen goal versus Argentina in ’98, the Beckham free-kick versus Greece as more pertinent examples of “historic” England goals, not a cushion-builder against a 4th place team in the group…
Iceland has qualified for a spot in final round playoffs for the remaining UEFA spots. That means playing a game in Iceland in mid-to-late November. Wonder what that will be like. Do they have an indoor stadium?
Not that bad really, 30-45 F and rainy with some snow. They get that warm gulfstream water. You will however not see the sun at all.
England and Spain are both up two nil on their oponents
After the automatic qualifiers from winning your group in Europe, how many more spots are up for grabs through the playoffs?
4 – the 8 runners up in Groups A-H compete in a home and away seeded by some corrupt FIFA/UEFA previously unknown coefficient to make sure Portugual, Ukraine, France and Sweden go through to Brazil at the expense of Iceland, Denmark Greece and Romania
To clarify, its not the runner’s up in groups A-H, just the 8 best.
Gotcha… so if I understand correctly….
FUBAR….
The 8 teams are chosen for the play-off based on their record against the teams who finish 1st through 8th in the group.
Denmark is left out.
england up 1-0 on poland.
Spain one nil Vs Georgia…. England still nil nil Vs Poland
Russia qualifies.
BOsnian too, isn’t that something
this world cup is shaping up to be very competitive. add in Spain, England, Ghana, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay (they’ll beat Jordan in the playoff), Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Nigeria, etc. and basically any group is going to be hard.
I think the draw/seeding pots will be interesting. Assuming Uruguay and Mexico win play-offs, the likely pots will be:
Top 8 – Pot A
UEFA next 8 – Pot B;
CONCACAF 4 + Asia 4 – Pot C;
Africa; UEFA and CONMEBOL leftovers – Pot D.
Don’t be surprised to see Ghana or the USA sneak into pot B
that’s not how it works. Only the top 8 was anything to do with ranking. The rest is all geography.
So…was looking at the uefa wcq table and France is still in doubt for the Playoffs.
nevermind…ops.
I hope Bob doesn’t suffer much blowback from this. One sad thing is that the formerly first choice keeper that he dropped will almost certainly be crowing in the Egyptian papers tomorrow about how he wouldn’t have let in any of those goals and this is all Bob’s fault for dropping him.
That’s how the game is played. Managers take the blame. He’s going to be trashed.
There’s no such thing as an underdog story if you can’t defend the opponent. Egypt just aren’t physically ecquipped across the field as pure athletes. That’s not to say that Ghana aren’t skilled- they’re success at the World Cup demonstrates that they’ve got both.
Egypt couldn’t pass through their midfield. This was just a nightmare.
I’d say that even worse was that when they lost it (its gonna happen) they couldn’t get it back to save their lives. Awful tackling, poor decision making and a ref that appeared to be making mouthlove to his whistle just made it impossible for them to stop the neverending Ghana pressure.
As to the talent, 3/4 of the Egyptian backline appeared to be incapable of merely running with much less defending any Ghanaian.
Baffling to me as to why the ref hasn’t blown the whistle.
5 minutes of additional time…..ridiculous
Almost a 7th. The Egyptian defense doesn’t seem to have come to play. (Neither has the attack for that matter – they’ve thrown away some golden chances.)
Ya get the feeling that with some of the ones that bounced to Egypt in the penalty box would have been scored easily had it been Ghana.
Yeah, they generated some chances but were the opposite of clinical, whereas Ghana completely put on a clinic at the other end.
Ray Hudson does not seem to have gotten the memo on the narrative.
Sorry, couldn’t hear you, all I heard was AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
OH MAN. Why am I still watching…6 to 1!
If this doesn’t end soon, Bradley may not make it to the 2nd leg as head coach.
6th goal for Ghana. Pull the plug now doctor.
6-1.
this Egypt story is just like all those sports cinderella movies, all the Egyptians need to do now is to win by a last second hail mary touchdown at home to seal it
They will actually need a 6 point score now. 6-1. Just devastating.
Wow this ref is just incredible. Egypt would still be losing without him but by god he’s determined to make this as lopsided as possible.
Ref is calling this match extremely tight. No physical contact allowed at all between players. Any bump or putting an arm out for space is being called a foul. Curious to see what the foul total is after the match. wow.
well if they can get this back to reasonable 2 or so, there’s a chance. However, if you look at the way Egypt is playing, I can’t see them not giving up another 2-3 in Cairo.