Rearranging the World OrderS Michael Bertin writes about soccer
for Deadspin World Cup qualifying in Europe is too easy. I know
that sounds ridiculous given some of the results over the
weekend—France losing to Austria, Italy needing stoppage time to
nip Cyrpus, and England being rescued against Andorra (again) by
five inspired minutes from Joe Cole—but in all likelihood those
teams are all still going to make it to South Africa. England
will probably even be there to compete. Look at a map of Europe
circa 20 years ago. I count 18 countries currently in qualifying
that weren't even there when Bush XLI was telling us to read his
lips. In fact in Group Six, England's group, the only other
country you'd find on that map (provided it didn't specify the
Soviet republics) is Andorra. And they didn't start competing in
qualification until the 2002 World Cup cycle. It's like England
drew the equivalent of four iterations of Kansas City Royals
split-squad teams.The fact that England will struggle isn't a
reflection of