Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Nineteen countries have now secured their places in the Fifa World Cup finals to be held in South Africa in 2010 after the penultimate games in the qualification series. In the African group Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are through and six places are up for grabs. Australia, Japan and the two Koreas take the Asian places with one more team entering a playoff with New Zealand. Seven of the 13 European places are decided:
Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England, Italy and Serbia are through. Switzerland beat Luxemburg 3-0 and head their group but still need to draw their final game to guarantee their place. England lost their unbeaten record with a 1-0 loss to Ukraine, having goalkeeper Robert Green sent off in the process.
Mexico and the USA have taken the top two North American spots after a thrilling 2-3 win for the USA over Honduras. In South America, Brazil, Chile and Paraguay are through while Argentina kept their hopes alive by scoring in the 93rd minute to secure a 2-1 victory over Peru.
Meanwhile there are calls to legalize prostitution in South Africa during the World Cup, in the hope that registering sex workers will reduce the spread of HIV infections.
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 11 October 2009.
Filed under: Sports
Tags: Africa group, Argentina, Asia, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Cote d'Ivoire, Denmark, England, FIFA, Fifa World Cup finals, Germany, Ghana, HIV, Hondura, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Robert Green, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA Mexico, World Cup