“We forced the Mexicans to their knees once more,” blared La Prensa in their morning edition, before adding: “Don’t rub your eyes, it really happened. It seems like a dream to us but it isn’t. Wake up, it’s real life.”

“Crawling pitifully into the Hexagonal”, headlined Mediotiempo.com, though the internet portal did not lay the blame on the players or head coach, instead claiming that the result was “a red warning sign highlighting the appalling planning and disproportionate ambition of Mexican football”.

“Kick him out. It only costs $4 million,” said the sports daily Record, referring to a penalty clause in Eriksson’s contract if he is sacked.

“If they want, Record will pay the first dollar.”

“We’ve qualified for the final stage but that’s where the dreams of a country could go down the drain along with millions of dollars and a golden generation,” added the newspaper.

I’d have to argue the golden generation is that of 2014 or 2018, with superstuds Carlos Vela, Giovani Dos Santos and Guillermo Ochoa still far from their primes, but point taken. Looking up the table at Honduras is never going to sit well - especially with last evening’s wound still fresh.

If he isn’t fired, and it seems unlikely that he will be just three months after his debut, he’s got til February to right the ship. But one has to wonder if the tumble that is Sven’s career will continue - this is the third straight gig which has gone a great deal less than wonderfully - as it seems Sven-Goran Eriksson the coach isn’t quite on par with Sven-Goran Eriksson the name anymore.

So you want to promote the Confederations Cup 2009, the “soft opening” for World Cup 2010 in South Africa. A tournament which hasn’t had much, if any, good PR. What do you do? Call in the hot chick cavalry and tell them to jump up and down. (They’re all Miss Something Or Other, currently competing for Miss World.) (Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images)

Brazil vs Portugal was billed as Kaka vs Ronaldo. If that was so, then someone raise Kaka’s arm. Brazil won 6-2 with the Jesus-owned playmaker pulling the strings.

More importantly this was Dunga vs Carlos Queiroz, two embattled coaches who couldn’t really afford a defeat. OK, it was only a friendly, but a 6-2 defeat to a former colony? That doesn’t bode well for Carlos Queiroz.

You can see the Portugal boss getting progressively depressed as the Brazilian goals fly in (the tv footage helfully cuts to him every time his team concede) culminating with a classic head in hands monent.

With Portugal currently third behind Hungary and Denmark in a World Cup 2010 qualifying group they should be winning, Carlos Queiroz will be looking over his shoulder and might want to call Alex Ferguson to see if his old job is still available.

El Diego’s already without key players like Leo Messi, Juan Roman Riquelme and possible future son in law Sergio Aguero (who’s left the squad to be with Maradona’s daughter, who he knocked up a while back). And because drama seems to follow the man wherever he goes, today Maradona is facing an old adversary for the fist time in 22 years. An angry Terry Butcher.

Butcher is assistant manager on the Scotland team, and was playing for England when Maradona scored his famous Hand of God goal at the 1986 World Cup:

And Butcher still seems a bit sore about it.

“It’s very hard to forgive and forget in the circumstances. But it was 22 years ago,” Butcher told the Press Association.

“I think I’m 4-1 to get a red card in the tunnel — it would be the fist of Terry Butcher rather than the hand.

“But, no, it’s gone now and, while we will never forget, it’s not about that game. I haven’t got a Maradona doll that I stick pins in every day, I don’t need psychiatric help,” he added.

Methinks the assistant manager doth protest too much. And let’s hope he’s joking about the “fist of Terry Butcher”.

Maradona responded in his usual diplomatic way:

“I’m not going to seek him out. I don’t know why Butcher has taken this attitude. I don’t quite understand. I will let Butcher get on with his life and I’ll get on with mine.

“I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. If he doesn’t shake my hand, I’ll still be alive tomorrow.”

Scotland vs Argentina kicks off at 8pm local time (3pm US Eastern). Ninety minutes later we’ll hopefully be able to form our first opinions about Maradona the international manager. Any good?

You can follow Argentina fan’s reactions to their new manager on Argentina World Cup Blog.

Yes, that’s our token European WC qualifier for the day. (Any others you may see going on are friendlies.)

Here’s a look at the qualifying games taking place today, November 19.

OCEANIA (OFC)

New Zealand vs. Fiji
New Zealand is the top team in Oceania and has already qualified for the home-and-away playoff series with the fifth-place Asian (AFC) team, scheduled for November 2009. Winner goes to World Cup 2010.

Maybe they’ll consider this game a warmup?

ASIA (AFC)
The AFC are currently in the fourth round of qualifying. It’s now down to two groups of five teams. Top two in each group will advance to the World Cup. The two third-place teams will play each other for the right to play against the top Oceania team. Winner goes to South Africa.

Bahrain vs. Australia, Group A
Australia is top of Group A with 6 points in 2 games. Bahrain is struggling with 1 point in two games. It’s still early in the round (five more games to play after this one) but this game is important for both teams.

UAE vs. Iran, Group B
UAE are not having a great qualifying campaign so far, with 0 points in three games. Iran is doing better, with 4 in two games, sitting second in the group on goal differential. Can UAE halt the skid?

Qatar vs. Japan, Group A
These two teams are currently both sitting on 4 points in Group 1, with Japan in second place in the group and Qatar in third based on goal differential. Since second place means automatic qualification, expect this one to be hard-fought.

Saudi Arabia vs. Korea Republic, Group B
Four teams in Group B currently have four points, including these two. Korea Republic is currently top of the group with a +3 goal differential, vs. Saudi Arabia’s +1.

CONCACAF (North and Central America and the Caribbean)
The USA, Costa Rica and El Salvador have already booked their tickets to the next round. Here’s what’s at stake in today’s games:

Suriname vs. Haiti, Group 3
There is not much at stake in this game. Neither Suriname (1 point) nor Haiti (2 points) can qualify for the next round. The winner of this match will finish third in the group and the loser will finish last, so they’re just playing for pride here.

USA vs. Guatemala, Group 1
The USA has already qualified to move onto the next round, and has already beaten Guatemala once, a shock away win. This time around they’re playing in Colorado and Guatemala will be out for revenge. The US let their guard down after qualifying and played some new and inexperienced players against Trinidad and Tobago in their most recent match. The result? T&T over USA 2-1. The US will be trying not to make the same mistake again.

Guatemala has five points vs. 12 for the USA and 8 for T&T. The only way for the Guatemalans to qualify will be to beat the US and to have Cuba beat T&T. Not terribly likely — Cuba currently has three points and a -10 goal differential.

Honduras vs. Mexico, Group 2
Could perennial powerhouse Mexico not even advance out of this round? Not likely, but possible if they’re beaten badly and Jamaica beats Canada. Even with a loss they could advance on goal differential, but if the combined differential of Honduras over Mexico and Jamaica over Canada is more than seven, Mexico would be outta here. More details in the blogger’s favorite resource, Wikipedia.

El Salvador vs. Costa Rica, Group 3
This game is for nothing but bragging rights. Both teams have already qualified for the next round. Costa Rica (currently 15 points) will finish first in the group, regardless, and El Salvador will finish second (10 points.)

Jamaica vs. Canada
Canada is out with two points, but their performance here can determine which of the teams above them go through. Jamaica (7 points) can go through with a win combined with a Honduras loss to Mexico, or if they win and… Oh, this is just too damn complicated. Go check it out in Wikipedia.

Trinidad and Tobago vs. Cuba
T&T currently has eight points, second in the group — three points over Guatemala and five points over Cuba. If T&T wins, they go through to the next round. Cuba can’t go through, but they can play spoiler by knocking out T&T if Guatemala beats the US.

UEFA (Europe)

San Marino vs. Czech Republic

The Wanna-Be-Giant and the Wanna-Be-Anything actually met in The Most Serene Republic of San Marino during Euro 2008 qualifying - no prize for guessing the result of that one. Considering the other big team in the group, zee Germans, rudely beat them 13-0 in front of their home crowd, though, the 3-0 loss to The Artist Formerly Known As Czechoslovakia wasn’t all that bad. But even with Cech & Rosicky out, it’s just a matter of “how many” and “will TMSROSM score”. I vote aye.

From Time Magazine:

What worries the search engines is that the ruling’s legal principle effectively holds them responsible for the content of web sites turned up in their searches.

A spokesperson for Google Argentina labeled the lawsuit “completely illogical. It would be like suing the newsstand for what appears in the newspapers it sells. Or demanding the newsstand vendor to tear out offending pages from the newspapers. The lawsuits should be against the websites carrying the information, not us.” Google Argentina has appealed the court order, and says it will not filter any links until the appeal has been decided.

The folks suing Google are claiming that this is not about stifling the flow of legit information:

[Attorney] Leguizamon argues that the search engines do not discriminate between links to appropiate material and links to pornographic sites that use the images of some of the models he represents. Maradona claims to have seen images of himself on porn sites linked to by Google.

(Um…gosh. What kind of indecent, smutty sites would link to things like that?)

The problem for anybody who values the free flow of information, though, is that even though things like that represent a tiny fraction of the Maradona links on google, there is no way for search engines to differentiate between those kinds of sites and the legit sites. So everything would be blocked.

So much for the free flow of information.

Even worse for fans of free speech, the public figures joining the lawsuit aren’t just celebrities. Three are judges. So if this is allowed to go forward, any blog posts, for example, that were critical of their judicial rulings would be blocked from being shown on Google. And the attorney would also be seeking damages even for things like innocuous images (such as, perhaps, the one in this post) that turn up in Google Image Searches.

The funniest part about this is that is won’t even work. Even with the blocks in place, all anybody has to do is exit the Argentinian google and go to the main Google site to repeat the searches.

This kind of thing is something you’d expect from a communist country like China or Cuba. From a country that purports to be a democracy? Not so much. A huge thumbs down to Argentina if they allow this to go through.

That man is checking for unexploded WWII bombs before construction begins on a stadium in Poland for Polkraine 2012.

“Theo Walcott gallops down the right side, one defender to beat and…and…Theo’s just been blown up!”

Yes, this is going to turn out well.

The row is over Maradona’s choice of assistant. El Diego wants his World Cup ‘86 teammate Oscar Ruggeri to be assistant manager and Argentina Football Association president Julio Grondona, well, doesn’t. And Grondona has a very straightforward reason for not wanting Ruggeri:

“I don’t like his face,” said Grondona as he forced his way through a crowd of reporters to his car. “It’s a personal thing.”

Apparently this has become an ultimatum situation already, with Maradona threatening to quit if he doesn’t get his man. Would obviously be a huge disappoint if Maradona resigns before even fielding a team, but at least he’d leave with an unbeaten record. How many international managers can say that?

Whether or not Maradona walks this time, we could veyr well be seeing a preview of how #10’s reign as Argentina coach ends. Diego Maradona may or may not be a decent coach (here are five reasons he’ll succeed) but he’s definitely not good at dealing with authority.

p.s. Good luck finding this story if you’re Googling from Argentina, where a judges have handed down restraining orders forcing Google Argentina and Google Yahoo to censor search results for certain celebrities.

The November numbers came out today, and for once you can see the immediate effect of recent results. That’s right, the November rankings actually make sense:

Euro 2008 champs Spain won their two two World Cup qualifiers in October, so they remain top. Euro 2008 chumps England rejoined the top 10 (joint 1th but still) after Fabio Capello showed them how it’s done. Germany also won both their games, while Italy dropped two points to Bulgaria. So the Euro 2008 runners up jump over the World Cup holders. Brazil dropped points last month, so they slip a place to fifth. See? It all makes sense this month.

Other movers and shakers: Switzerland rose 18 places to 27th and Jamaica jumped 33 places to 83rd with wins over Mexico and Honduras.

And great news for East Timor, who finally avoided defeat last month with a 2-2 draw against Cambodia. That achievement lifts them away from the pack of joint 201st bottom dwellers with zero ranking points and into 198th place.

Top 20 below:

1. (1) Spain
2. (3) Germany
3. (2) Italy
4. (5) Netherlands
5. (4) Brazil
6. (7) Argentina
7. (6) Croatia
8. (9) Russia
9. (8) Czech Republic
10= (10) Portugal
10= (14) England
12. (11) France
13. (13) Turkey
14. (12) Cameroon
15. (16) Israel
16. (15) Bulgaria
17. (22) Paraguay
18. (17) Greece
19. (18) Romania
20. (19) Ukraine

Full rankings here.

The problems started with a knee ligament injury in 2007. Appiah was with Fenerbahçe at the time, but the club apparently botched his treatment, leading Appiah to go back to Italy (he’s a former Juve and Udinese player) for rehab.

All’s good for Appiah now ligament wise, but his legal situation is a mess. FIFA ruled that Appiah is a free agent and able to sign for any club, but Fenerbahce are still demanding a transfer fee if and when he signs up for another team. Because if I nearly ruined a player’s knee, I’d want to get paid for it too.

If FIFA had any balls, they’d be able to just say no to Fenerbahce. But instead they’re busy hearing appearls and counter-appeals that leave Appiah with nothing to but wait. FIFPro (the world player’s union) recently published a scathing attack on FIFA for their snail-pace:

Appiah’s case is far from unique and is of great concern to FIFPro’s African division, as its Secretary General Stéphane Burchkalter underlines:

“When confronted with administrative slowness which they do not understand and which they will eventually stop accepting in light of the athletic and professional penalties that come as a result, will the players not one day soon be more likely to bring their disputes to civil tribunals instead of taking them to sports judicial bodies?

“Does FIFA understand all the risks involved? Does FIFA understand the increasingly delicate position in which national players’ unions and FIFPro find themselves, after having always encouraged professional players to take their grievances to FIFA’s judicial body and now facing increasing, and daily, discontent from their members who feel forgotten, or even abandoned?”

FIFA of course rebuffed those attacks with a statement, but their claim that…

“Having given the right to be heard to both parties, the case related to claims from both parties on a breach of employment contract will be submitted to the Dispute Resolution Chamber at the next possible meeting for a formal decision to be taken.”

…makes it sound like FIFA is agreeing with FIFPro. Basically Appiah has to sit around and wait for Appiah’s case to go through the Dispute Resolution Chamber. And he’s been waiting since April 2008.

Sure, someone could sign him now. But who’s going to sign a player when they don’t know how much he’ll cost? Could be free, could be millions of euros.

I’m siding with FIFPro here. If FIFA believes that Appiah is a free agent (as they claim to) then the organization should grow some balls and just tell Fenerbahce to forget and let Appiah get on with his career.