France v Ireland...Euro 2012 qualifiers??

Okay Okay...the hysteria over the Titi Henry "Hand of Frog" has barely died down, but the pots for the qualifiers for the Euro 2012 are out...and how ironic would it be if Les Bleus were drawn with the Irish...the pots:

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3
Spain (holders) Germany Netherlands Italy England Croatia Portugal France Russia	Greece Czech Republic Sweden Switzerland Serbia Turkey Denmark Slovakia Romania	Israel Bulgaria Finland Norway Republic of Ireland Scotland Northern Ireland Austria Bosnia and Herzegovina
Pot 4	Pot 5	Pot 6
Slovenia Latvia Hungary Lithuania Belarus Belgium Wales Macedonia Cyprus	Montenegro Albania Estonia Georgia Moldova Iceland Armenia Kazakhstan Liechtenstein	Azerbaijan Luxembourg Malta Faroe Islands Andorra San Marino

Qualifying will be similar to what we just went through for the World Cup - winners of each group go through. The top 8 second place nations go into a home and away play off. A quick look at the Pots:

Pot 1 - no real surprise, the weakest could be Croatia and Russia, which is no walk in the park. Depending on whether or not Hiddink remains with Russia will determine how difficult that nation is to play. However any team with Arshavin is going to be dangerous...a shame he will not be in South Africa next summer. Finally based on their last campaign Les Bleus might not seem as dangerous as the other nations...then again if they have a better manager maybe that will not be the case!

Pot 2 - again no real easy nation, the ones I would fear the most are the Danes, although sometimes they are trick or treat, some years the really punch above their weight and some years they look like Luxembourg. The Czechs will be interesting, they are a nation in transition if they can figure out who they are and which players to lean on, they can be very dangerous. Turkey and Greece are other dangerous nations to face, the Turks were a semi finalist in the last Euro and really underperformed this World Cup qualification campaign. The Greeks are going to only their second world cup and have recaptured some of the mojo that saw them win the Euro in Portugal.

Pot 3 - two of the snubbed nations that lost in the 2nd place play off for the World Cup - Ireland and Bosnia. As well as nations that late in the campaign had legitimate chances to go to South Africa - Bulgaria and North Ireland...no easy nations to face in this pot. Austria and Scotland maybe the weakest, although if Scotland play like last Euro qualifier they will be a handful. I think Austria remains a shell of the former footballing nation that used to be present at major tournaments.

Pot 4 - Slovenia is clearly the nation to avoid, they are heading to South Africa next summer after defeating the Russians in the play offs. They have qualified in the past for Euros so are no push over. Hungary had a respectable qualifying campaign and had a chance late on to head through. The one team I would fear other than Slovenia is Belgium. One must not forget that this nation has had success in major tournaments - 4th place finish in the 1986 World Cup, runners up in the Euros 1980 and they finished 4th in the most recent Olympics and it is safe to assume some of those players will be on the senior side for the Euros. In addition they are not managed by the Dutchman Advocaat.

Pot 5 - Now we get to some of the minnows. The nations I would want to avoid are Iceland and Georgia. The former Soviets have demonstrated they can play spoiler for any nation - look at the result they got against Scotland in the Euro 2008 qualifiers, basically gave France a life line and knocked down the Scots. Iceland is also a difficult nation to play.

Pot 6 - These are the real minnows. Unfortunately for these nations the stand zero chance to be qualified. Securing a draw and not being embarassed are goals they can hope for. Question remains, should they still be included as is? Or should they, like the Champions League, have a preliminary round robin tournament? Maybe have the teams in Pot 5&6 have a home and away play off, the winners will make up Pot 5? I realize that that might take away some revenue since a San Marino will not be able to receive a Spain or Germany, but not sure having France play the Faroe Islands twice accomplishes much.

So the ink has barely dried on the list of teams heading to South Africa for the World Cup...I know the Irish hope it is erasable ink so they can somehow erase the name France and put Ireland in its place! But as is international soccer the next major tournament is being organized. It will be interesting to see how the groups play out.