Bob Bradley is Class

"Bradley’s squad will now join nine other African teams in a home-and-away playoff for the third and final round of African World Cup qualifying: Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon and Senegal."

 

Wouldn't it be ironic if Egypt put Ghana out of the World Cup.

 

Depends on the draw, I believe. The playoff draw takes place on 9/16.

 

These are the pots for Africa's WCQ
1 - Ghana, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Tunisia, Nigeria
2 - Egypt, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal, Ethiopia

Baffling that the team who performed the best in the group stages ends up in Pot 2 while Tunisia, who only advanced to this stage because Cape Verde played an ineligible player against them, is in pot 1. I really dont understand why Africa does their qualifying this way. If Egypt draws Ghana, IC or Nigeria, there is no way Africa sends their five best teams to Brasil. Here's hoping Tunisia draws Egypt (heat up their ping pong ball, someone at FIFA knows how to do that) or it might be ugly for Egypt. There is bad blood between Egypt and Algeria so that would be an unfortunate match up too.

 

Per Soccer Morning Egypt has drawn Ghana in the qualifying match. Ouch, that is a tough break but I wish him the best of luck.

 

Maybe Egypt should play their home game in Columbus.

 

Maybe.

 

Not the best of the matchups by any means (maybe only Ivory Coast would have been worse), but I'm sure Ghana is wondering what it did to deserve playing Eygpt. Love the irony, that possible American payback for last two WC's could come by way of the coach of Egypt.

 

An interesting thing is that Egypt was actually relived to get Ghana rather than Algeria or Tunisia. The players are happy that there will be no tensions and the games will just be about football. I guess I shouldnt be surprised by that after what that country has been going through.

Yes, the irony is incredible. If Egypt can pull off World Cup Qualification, things will have gone full circle from that incredible and improbable 3-0 USA victory over Egypt to get to the semi of the Confederations Cup. It's a movie in the making, and oh guess what, someone is making a movie about it.

 

Another reason to root for Egypt - Salah, their 21 yr-old star scored yesterday in Basel's victory over Chelsea. :banana-dance:

 

Ghana trying to get match moved from Cairo.

http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/15766 ... pt?cc=5901

 

If they move it to a neutral site where Egypt has no home field advantage then I think Ghana's home game needs to be moved to a neutral site too. But tht will never happen because ghana will want their homecfield and the ticket sales. Or as I said previously, bring Egypt's home game to the USA and let the Outlaws give them a home field advantage

 

First leg against Ghana is tomorrow at noon on BeIn Sport. Go Pharaohs ray:

 

Yep, with U.S. qualification done and dusted, my attention is turning here. Will have my DVR set and, as usual for us on the West Coast, will try to avoid any spoilers until I can get home and watch. I may DVR the England match as well to cheer on Roy.

 

At 2 - 1 to Ghana all looked well for Egypt - 4 more goals later, not so much. Rumors and fables indicate that Bradley won't even make the second leg as he'll be dropped by Monday. Heads up, Fulham.

From what I was able to view, Egypt were simply outclassed. Ghana is in form, yet again.

 

Saw the highlights. Ghana outclassed them sure enough, but a couple bad breaks helped the scoreline; On the penalty given to Egypt, the Ghana defender who was on a yellow should' have gotten another. Down 2-1 with the hosts being down to 10 men would have meant a different match. Also, the ref gave Ghana a pk on a play where the goalie clearly won the ball. Sad to think this is how it might end, but if it does BB will have nothing to hang his head about.

 

It's a shame. They're not going to close the gap, so they may as well let him finish it out. I only saw the first half, but Ghana was by far the superior side. It could have been 3 or 4 after just 20 minutes. Chalk this one up to bad, bad luck in the draw.

As for what's next for Bob, as much as I'd like to see him on our touchline, I can't imagine the flack Khan would take for hiring an American. I don't see it happening. Back to MLS? I'd imagine just about any team back here would be happy to have him.