This is no longer conjecture, it is hard fact. FIFA has announced the home-and-away qualifying ties that will cut down the number of African squads from 53 to 48. Niger escaped this phase as the 48th-ranked African side. As always, the current ELO ratings will appear next to the team names.October 12, 2007
159 Swaziland “at” 192 Somalia (Djibouti)
October 13, 2007
200 Comoros at 154 Madagascar
162 Central African Republic at 183 São Tomé e Príncipe
209 Djibouti at 177 Seychelles
October 14, 2007
146 Guinea-Bissau at 138 Sierra Leone
November 17, 2007
Madagascar at Comoros
Somalia at Swaziland
São Tomé e Príncipe at Central African Republic
Sierra Leone at Guinea-Bissau
Seychelles at Djibouti
My bold prediction is that none of these teams will qualify for the World Cup.The ELO rankings have Lesotho at 169 and Eritrea at 162. Those countries must be glad that the FIFA rankings are used to make the draws. Niger is ranked 137.I find it interesting that the two highest-ranked teams by the ELO ratings are facing off head-to-head in this preliminary round. In truth, picking any of these five winners would be a crapshoot, so I won't even try except for one. Madagascar over Comoros is the pick since they played in a friendly in August and Madagascar won 3-0.
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