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2010 qualification heats up: are these games crucial to the success of our World Cup?

It’s the final stages of the world cup qualifiers and the last chance for some serious football nations to get onto the planes for South Africa next June. How important is it for the success of our world cup, which we have built towards for the last five years, the teams that are here battling it out?

Some of the big names still vying for a spot include Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal, Thierry Henry’s French side, as well as Andre Arshavin’s Russians and the2004 Euro champs, the Greeks.

The importance of these huge sides being here is that even if they scrape through this final round and qualify, they are major contenders to win the title, and the more big names you see tussling for the title, the more exciting the prospects are. Love him or hate , to see Ronaldo dazzling on the pitch would be an absolute screamer and something any soccer fan would love to see.

FIFA seem to share my opinion that the more big guns there are at the tournament the better. FIFA decided to seed the final round of fixtures so that none of the ‘big names’ could draw each other , with one definitely being knocked out. The French have drawn arguably the toughest unseeded opponents in Northern Ireland, and Portugal face an inspired Bosnia and Herzegovina without there talisman, Ronaldo.

The first rounds went perfectly to my elitist plans with the French, Portuguese and Russians all taking a one goal lead into their final matches to be played Wednesday and Thursday this week.

I will take a moment to acknowledge that a fiery performance by an underdog is not lost on my purist football emotions. The one thing that is true in soccer over many other sports is that the underdog really does have a chance and can cause an upset that ripples through the course of the entire tournament. Sure, New Zealand will not win it, but imagine they upset Brazil in a group game causing the 5-time world champs to not qualify or to finish second and set up a mouth watering clash as early as the last 16.

Who could forget Senegal’s run in the 2002 world cup? They beat the World Champs at the time, France, sending them crashing out of the group stages with the ire Africans reaching the quarter finals in their first ever world cup. The same year hosts South Korea stunned all and made it to the semi finals, beating both Italy and Spain on the way. C’mon Bafana Bafana... you can do it!

Speaking of African nations, I really cannot ignore the feeling that Africa is going to shine this time around. It’s on local turf and, to my absolute glee, only the finest African football nations have qualified. Ghana, lead by the inspirational talent of Michael Essien, Ivory coast with Drogba, Kalou, the Toure brothers, and arsenals’ Eboue will be backing themselves for success, alongside Obamfemi martins and Nigeria and Samuel Eto’o and the Cameroon side. The only big name not to qualify yet is Egypt who is one win against Algeria away from the 2010 finals, and alongside Bafana bafana concludes the African contingent.

It really is a huge end to the qualification process and one that I think will be pivotal in determining the success of the cup. May all the big guns be here, may the African sides be better, and Bafana Bafana simply the BEST!

FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010... only days away!