---

GROUP A

 FRANCE
 SOUTH KOREA
 NORWAY
 NIGERIA

GROUP B

 GERMANY
 CHINA PR
 SPAIN
 SOUTH AFRICA

GROUP C

 AUSTRALIA
 ITALY
 BRAZIL
 JAMAICA

GROUP D

 ENGLAND
 SCOTLAND
 ARGENTINA
 JAPAN

GROUP E

 CANADA
 CAMEROON
 NEW ZEALAND
 NETHERLANDS

GROUP F

 UNITED STATES
 THAILAND
 CHILE
 SWEDEN
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The four best third-placed teams from the six groups advance to the knockout stage along with the six group winners and six runners-up.

So the Woman's World Cup starts tomorrow, with hosts Canada facing China. Anyone else going to be watching?

I'm supporting Sweden personally, them and Canada.

We've got a month until the World Cup! So exciting!

Anyway for some reason the BBC suddenly posted news about Japan's squad because Shunsuke Nakamura (the ex-Celtic player) has been recalled.
However the best news is that Kawaguchi is back in the squad as third choice goalie! He's a total legend. A chirpy little Japanese shot stopping legend:


My local team is Nagoya Grampus and we've got two players in the squad but one is Tulio who hasn't had the best couple of years.


Is Jesus (Kennedy) in the Australian squad? He's Nagoya's big lanky striker who looks useless for 89 minutes and then bundles in a header in the last minute pretty much every game.

Anyway, Japan are annoying me because their style at ANY kind of football is to try to dribble the ball into the net (a bit like Arsenal but less successful) instead of one person just deciding to let rip from around the box. If they actually shot from 16-25 yards from time to time they'd actually be pretty decent.

We have an England thread, but not a general one, so here it is.

Norn Iron are 1-0 down against Russia with around 25mins to play.

Wales vs. Belgium is on Sky Sports later, and Holland-Turkey can be watched on ESPN.

Fully expecting a comfortable Belgium win this evening. Can't see Wales handling them.

Scotland play Serbia, and Rep Ire vs. Kazakhstan is currently goal-less.

It may seem early but, bo-lieve it or not, the qualifying campaigns for certain AFC teams begin today. I'd completely forgotten about it, until I read this article on the BBC, explaining how a 'living God' was cheering on Bhutan in their opening game.

The 12 lowest ranked sides contest a two legged play off to see who gets into Round 2.

Some of the first leg games have already finished, including a shock win for Bhutan (the only team in the current FIFA World rankings to have zero points):

Timor-Leste 4 - 1 Mongolia
Cambodia 3 - 0 Macau
Sri Lanka 0 - 1 Bhutan

The games still to play/finish are:

India - Nepal
Yemen - Pakistan
Chinese Taipei - Brunei Draussalam

The second legs are due to be played on Tuesday next week.


As for the other qualifying zones, CONCACAF begin later this month (23rd), and the CAF and CONMEBOL begin in October. UEFA are yet to reveal the date of their start. OFC are using the OFC Nations Cup next year as their qualification process.


EDIT: We should so adopt a team in each zone as EWB's underdog team!