Paving the way to South Africa

With the European Championships which excelled the victorious Spaniards to top spot in Mark’s Rankings in June and the Olympic Games in Beijing later on taking centre stage, Egypt would hope that their humiliating 4-0 friendly defeat in August away to Sudan had gone unnoticed, but there were also important World Cup qualifiers being played in which Suriname gained a 2-2 draw in Haiti while Trinidad and Tobago enjoyed a 3-1 win in Cuba. In the Caribbean Cup qualifiers Antigua & Barbuda whipped Bermuda 4-0 on the Cayman Islands, and after a disappointing 0-0 draw against Aruba, Netherlands Antilles showed much improvement in their next home match to register a 2-0 victory over Grenada.
A short spell in September saw the World Cup qualifiers in Europe get well and truly underway with Lithuania producing the first shock of the campaign winning 3-0 in Romania. Austria enjoyed a 3-1 home win against France, and Iceland held Norway to a 2-2 draw in Oslo. England put their recent disappointments against Croatia behind them with a 4-1 triumph in Zagreb, and 2 late goals gave Denmark a 3-2 victory in Portugal. The Swiss crowd were stunned by a 2-1 defeat to Luxembourg, while Bosnia & Herzegovina ran riot at home with the 7-0 destruction of Estonia.
In South America Colombia went from bad to worse at home losing 1-0 to Uruguay and 4-0 to Chile. Brazil who had earlier enjoyed a 3-0 win in Chile were held to a goalless draw at home to Bolivia who were reduced to 10 men for most of the 2nd half.
In Africa Uganda suffered a 3-1 loss in Niger, and Chad defeated Sudan 2-1 in Egypt before going down 3-1 in the same fixture 4 days later. The most notable result in Asia was the 3-0 victory of the United Arab Emirates at home to Uzbekistan.

Early summer matches

While the battle for European supremacy was taking place in Europe, the rest of the world had their eyes on the 2010 World Cup. Trinidad and Tobago scraped through to the next round of the North, Central America and Caribbean section with a 2-0 win in Bermuda after having suffered a shock 2-1 defeat in their home match, while El Salvador forgot about their 1-0 loss in Panama with a 3-1 win in the return match. Puerto Rico held Honduras to a 2-2 draw but went out after losing 4-0 in Honduras. Netherlands Antilles managed a 0-0 draw in Haiti but fell to a single goal at home, while Suriname followed up their 1-0 home-leg win with a 2-1 victory in Guyana.
In South America Paraguay playing with 10 men for most of the match celebrated a 2-0 home triumph against Brazil but crashed down from their dizzy heights losing 4-2 in Bolivia.
Round 3 group matches were completed in Asia with 10 teams progressing to the next round. Having registered a 1-0 win in China, Qatar joined Australia in the next round by eliminating champions Iraq whom they beat 1-0 at home in the final day. China finished bottom of the group despite a 1-0 victory in Australia. The United Arab Emirates lost 3-1 at home to Syria, but pipped them to the post on goal difference. The most entertaining match of this round took place in Singapore where the hosts were overrun 7-3 by Uzbekistan.
While the bigger boys in Asia were in action, the South Asian Cup took place in Sri Lanka where little Bhutan enjoyed a fairly good run including a 3-1 win over Afghanistan, a 1-1 draw with Bangladesh.
In Africa Burkina Faso returned from Tunisia with a 2-1 victory while Seychelles held on to a 0-0 draw in Burundi. Kenya earned 2 home wins beating both Guinea and Zimbabwe 2-0, while Gabon enjoyed the same result against Ghana. Egypt and Morocco did not travel well as they lost 1-0 to Malawi and 3-1 to Rwanda respectively. South Africa were beaten 1-0 in Sierra Leone and could only draw 0-0 in their return match. In other matches Uganda defeated Angola 3-1 and Togo lost 2-1 in Swaziland.
All the above mentioned teams were big movers in the Football Rankings for the month of June.