Time is closing up..
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In a few weeks FIFA will announce 32 teams who will be guests of World CUP' 2002 finals hosted by Japan and South Korea. About 200 national teams fought for their tickets in this years World CUP Qualifying matches. These teams are already through:
South America:

Argentina: - With no losses, leading the CONMEBOL tournament with 38 points.

4 teams will advance from CONMEBOL to WORLD CUP, and the 5th team will play against Australia.
The teams competing for the remaining seats are Paraguay, Chile, and Brazil.

Europe: 13 or 14 teams to qualify + France!

England: With less goals in their own net advances to World CUP.
Italy: With top points scored in the competition, also advances to World CUP.
Spain: - Yeah, Spain, baby. With no doubt!!!

Belgium or Croatia? - Belgium 17 points, Croatia with 15.
The match scheduled on October 6th will make it clear. Croatia has to win in order to advance to World CUP.

Poland: - The new contestant of World CUP qualifying matches tops Ukraine and other group members with 20 points and advances to World CUP!

Sweet Sweeden: - After their victory over Turkey 2:1, they also advance to World CUP! Henrik Larsson Babyy!

I can't say anything about the following teams..

RUSSIA or SLOVENIA?
PORTUGAL or IRELAND Republic?
DENMARK, CZECH REPUBLIC or BULGARIA?

Allrighty, let's move on to AFRICA

Qualifying matches in Africa are long over. Only 5 teams qualified for the next year's World CUP finals: Who are they???

CAMEROON BABY!
NIGERIA !
SOUTH AFRICA!
TUNISIA!
and a new contestant in WORLD CUP's History SENEGAL!

ASIA: 2 or 3 teams to qualify + South Korea and Japan. The teams still have long way to go before qualifying, so let's just leave it at that

Familiar faces we won't see in World CUP:

Edgar Davids, Savo Milosevic, Predrag Mijatovic, Marc Overmars, Frank De Boer, Edwin Van Der Sar, RUUUUD Van Nistelrooij, Krassimir Balakov, Boudemirj Zenden, Biser Ivanov, Ole Gunnar Solkjaer, Iversen, Jari Litmannen, Hakan Sukur, Umit Davala, Ivan Zamorano, Eddie Pope, Ricardo Fuller.... eehh...

New faces we are to see in World CUP 2002:

Javier Saviola (New forward of Argentina) :)

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portugal just have to win estonia (home) to go trough ... no big deal :D

[ 09-06-2001: Message edited by: Jp5 ]

Russia (20 points) has a three point lead over Slovenia (17 points), with a game to play at home against Switzerland; Russia needs at least a tie to keep the first place. Slovenia plays some small team, like Luxembourg, so they will win it for sure. Russia has the better goal difference than Slovenia, so technically a loss at home to Switzerland 0:1 or 1:2 will still do it.


PS. Jari Litmanen a familiar face where? in World Cups? Well, he never played in one (not even European Championship), and he isn't getting younger - with a pretty young a FAST Finnish team, he will have to call it international retirement pretty soon. Portugal 2004 will probably be his last chance, but even that is questionable, if Finland will improve in the next 4 years like they improved for the past 5 years.