Europe, Brazil, Africa, Van Persie

Ireland worked their socks up all night but are now left with a tough task of overturning a 1-0 French lead on Wednesday night in Paris. First half was a pretty scrappy affair with an offside goal from Gignac being the closest France got to a goal but Ireland had a great chance to take the lead. Keane was played in but could only get a mid-air toe on the ball which was stopped by an impressive Lloris, and the ball fell to Lawrence who had pretty much a tap in to score the most important goal of his life. Somehow he scuffed the ball into one of Patrice Evra spindly little legs and the ball flicked wide. Good defending? I suppose, I mean he was there and got something on it, but I couldn't believe Lawrence missed it. Second half France cranked up the pressure and had a few decent penalty shouts, and then an Anelka shot was deflected in off St. Ledger and the post. Ireland rallied with changes and a few half chances, another good bit of goal keeping held them up though for it to end 1-0. I don't think it's all over yet though, it's not 2,3 or 4-0, Ireland can certainly go there and get a goal, they'll probably need to score first though to put some pressure on the French.

I saw the first half of Russia v Slovenia which ended 2-1 to the home side. From watching just 45mins and what I've heard on the second half, Russia can count themselves to be a bit lucky. The tie is delicately balanced now and a 1-0 Slovenia second leg would send the Slovos through on away goals. Portugal were likewise a bit jammy in their home leg winning just 1-0 against Bosnia, who hit the woodwork at least 3 times I read. The other game went Greece 0-0 Ukraine, nothing to report here. All the 8 teams have a good shout to go through still and so far none of the ties have been as cut and dry as they would seem on paper. More to come on Wednesday.

If we learnt anything from watching England v Brazil yesterday it's that if England are going to win the World Cup next year, it won't be because we're the best team. Brazil gave us a bit of a lesson in how to keep the ball, they looked solid at the back (when their centre back wasn't striding forward taking a few men on and pinging one from the edge of the box) and have quality all over the front line. I know it was a second string team in some tough heat but it was a very disappointing display, from a lot of players who had a great chance to impress the boss in one of the last friendlies before the squad is named. Rooney looked good first half, Milner kept plugging away, Defoe was OK off the bench, Wright Phillips beat a man once or twice. These really are the very half positives we can take. The back four were just shit, Wes Brown topping the pile of shitness with his classy chest back to FostOH NO, NILMAR HAS APPEARED AS IF FROM NO-WHERE TO PINCH THE BALL AND THE KEEPER HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO BRING HIM DOWN. Right back is a bit of problem at the moment and after last night I'm really not sure who will go to SA as back-up to Johnson. Hopefully Kieran Gibbs can come on leaps and bounds so we can finally put Bridge to sleep. We've struggled now against France, Holland, Spain and Brazil but did well to beat Germany in Germany. When you look at that list it's no wonder we're a 'quarter final team' because we can't seem to play that good attacking football we see week in week out, when it comes to those big games.

Cameroon and Nigeria booked their places at the World Cup but one place is still outstanding between Egypt and Algeria. The permutations before the game were as follows: a 1-0 Egypt win would send Algeria through, a 3-0 win would send Egypt through, but a 2-0 win would mean that all head-to-heads, goal difference, goals scored etc would be totally equal. What happened? Yep, 5th min of extra time Egypt got the second goal they needed and now there will be a one off playoff in Sudan on Wednesday. Quite incredible really, especially considering the Algerian bus was attacked with bricks and such as it came into Egypt - they clearly don't like each other.

Finally, in a fucking meaningless friendly between Holland and Italy last night, RvP got injured. Sound familiar? That's because it's happened before, at least twice off the top of my head. I've seen the challenge on YouTube from Chellini and it looks pretty innocuous really, I think Rob has rolled his ankle under his body or something, but the early prognoses is 2 maybe 3 months out with ankle ligament damage, and with Wenger being notoriously cautious on such matters we probably won't see him until January. The man has been in such good form this season and is the perfect player to play in that role, I'm vexed about it.

I'm off to watch Kidmore End Reserves v Coley Park - don't tell me that Ireland v France is bigger than this. Take her easy.