Courtesy: UEFA.com


Futsal's finest bidding for Brazil

Monday 10 September 2007

by Paul Saffer

The European qualifying draw for the 2008 FIFA Futsal World Cup takes place on Tuesday 18 September in Nyon - with 38 UEFA members in contention, the most for any international competition.

Spain bid
Having successfully defended the global title in Chinese Taipei in 2004, Spain will hope to complete a hat-trick of successes in Brazil late next year. They are one of ten top seeds for the qualifying draw, which will split teams into eight groups of four teams and two of three. In the fourth pot are two nations entering international competition for the first time in their own right, Estonia and Montenegro. England, Bulgaria, Malta and Turkey are making their World Cup bow.

Seeding
The four-team groups will each contain one nation from the four seeding pots, with the other pools made up of sides from Pots 1-3. Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria, Malta and Turkey have been selected to stage the ten mini-tournaments so will be kept apart in the draw though this does not effect their overall seeding. Once the ten mini-tournaments have been played in February, the group winners will enter the draw for five home-and-away play-offs, which will produce the quintet to represent Europe in Brazil.

European final
Spain, the only European team to have played in all five previous editions, beat Italy 2-1 in the final in 2004 with Portugal, Ukraine and Czech Republic reaching the second group stage. The five teams defeated in the play-offs were Poland, Slovenia, Belarus, Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina, who surprised Russia in their qualifying group.

2008 FIFA Futsal World Cup, European qualifying draw

Host nations in bold

Pot 1
Spain (holders)
Italy
Ukraine
Portugal
Czech Republic
Russia
Slovenia
Netherlands
Hungary
Belgium

Pot 2
Serbia
Slovakia
Croatia
Moldova
Belarus
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Poland
Andorra
Greece
Azerbaijan

Pot 3
F.Y.R. Macedonia
France
Lithuania
Latvia
Israel
Georgia
Finland
Romania
Cyprus
Albania

Pot 4
Armenia
Kazakhstan
England
Bulgaria
Estonia
Malta
Montenegro
Turkey



Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com