Annoying Soccer Update

1. FIFA Club World Cup

The Club World Cup has kicked off in Japan, without a whole lot of fanfare. The last time this event was played was six years ago in Brazil when it was won by Corinthians, a team chosen more or less at random by the Brazilian FA to make up the numbers. The format has changed, and it's all in Japan so it can be merged a little more smoothly with the Toyota Cup, the traditional game between the European and South American champions. This time, the champions of the other four continents played off while Europe and South America got a bye to the semi-finals.

African champions Al Ahly (Egypt) beat Auckland City FC by the score of 2-0 in Toyota City yesterday, in what has to be the most ridiculous game. No disrespect to Auckland City, and it would be nice if they got a bump from this since they're working to promote a minor sport in New Zealand in a struggling league, but since Australia joined Asia, Auckland City are by default the champions of Oceania. They play in the Australian A-league, so I don't they ever played another Oceania club to become the continent's champions. Any future CWC will have to include them by default, making another argument for making Oceania an Asian subgroup at best (which in practical terms they will be in World Cup qualifying). Al Ahly goes on to play the South American champions Internacional (Brazil) in the semi-finals this Wednesday.

Club America saw off Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors FC 1-0 in what was by all accounts a very lacklustre game. Supposedly America were dealing with jet lag and still mourning losing the Mexican championship to Chivas, so maybe they'll come up with something against Barcelona in the semi-finals on Thursday.

Auckland City FC and Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors FC will play off to determine which continent is worst on Friday. I'd like to think that the only team I've never heard of, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, is the stronger team for having won the Asian Champions League, which usually always seems to go to a Japanese or Saudi club.

The 3rd place game and the Final will both be played on Sunday in Yokohama.

2. Freddy Adu to Real Salt Lake

Maybe now he'll get some playing time and quit whining. DC United was only using him as a super-sub, since he was a small teenager and they didn't want to burn him out and get him injured playing him 90 minutes a game against grown men. Adu might see some more time with the national team as well after the Copa America, so we can see if he's going to play in South Africa in 2010. Supposedly he's in talks with Manchester United, who can't buy him until next summer, at which point he'll be stashed on a reserve team somewhere but we'll find out how good he really is.

3. World Cup Qualifying

The allocations for each continent for South Africa 2010 are out, and it's a little strange. One thing that went right is now that Australia is part of Asia, making Oceania qualifying fairly pointless, the OFC winner will join the last round of Asian qualifying. This is good. what's odd is
that the combined confederations will get five spots. I would have thought at most 4.5 with a play-off against Europe.

The Americas will get eight spots in total, which is about the same as usual, but I have no idea what kind of play-off structure will apply. My guess would be 3 North/Central American teams will qualify directly from the Hex, and 4 South American teams will qualify directly from the same single group qualifying structure, with one team from each playing off for the last spot. The cream does tend to rise to the top in the Americas, but the play-off just got a lot tougher. I'd actually like to see two play-offs, making the Hex a lot tighter if 3rd place meant a playoff in the mountains of Ecuador.

It's hard to say who's going to play well out of Africa in a given year, but the qualifying process leaves very little confidence that Africa has sorted out its best teams, unlike the current systems in the American confederations. This year, the host allocation will not come out of the confederation's allocation, so Africa will have six teams in total including South Africa. Given that, I'd like to see rigorous qualifying that sends six quality African sides to Africa's World Cup.

To make this bounty possible for Africa and Asia, Europe has lost a spot. I wish this meant one less overly defensive, slow, boring team, and we'd be spared another Switzerland vs Ukraine game. Unfortunately it will probably be somebody loaded with talent like Portugal, France, or the Netherlands who has a rough qualifying draw and gets left behind.