African Cup, World Cup, Euro 2012, Free Football Tips and New Football SMS Service

As the African Cup of Nations ends what has been a very, very poor quality tournament, I find it difficult to find any positives. The tournament started in chaos with the appalling attack on the Togo team, which ultimately led to their decision not to participate and now it looks like they will not be allowed to participate in the next 2 African Cups, an absolutely unbelievable decision from the badly run CAF. How could they expect Togo to carry on after what happened to them. The tournament was a farce from beginning to end.

Fair enough it started with a very entertaining game 4-4, you can’t complain about that but from then on it was downhill all the way to a very poor final. There was not one single match of any consequence, no outstanding play from any side and not one player stood out from the rest of the the mediocrity. All the big names were there but probably wished they were back at their clubs, they were pathetic. I really thought that this year an African side had a good chance of lifting the World Cup. On this evidence, not a snowball in hells’ chance.

The African continent has just staged the 2010 African Cup and made a real mess of it, they cannot afford to make a mess of the World Cup or they will never get the chance again. Algeria were a disgrace to the competition, in their semi-final with Egypt, the pitches were atrocious, the crowds were virtually non-existant and the referees, please don’t get me started on them. I am just pleased to get it out of the way and back to some real football.

The Arsenal v Man Utd game, on the other hand, was a proper football match, a fantastic spectacle, played with pace, energy and classy football. Nani has at last woken up and smelt the coffee. Rooney was a terror and the second goal was sublime.

From the middle of March I will be giving you the heads up on the World Cup groupings and how I think they will pan out. With analysis of all teams in the Cup, it should give you a good idea of where to place your money.

However, the World Cup has not yet started and we are already looking forward to Euro 2012. It is being held in a joint venture between Poland and the Ukraine, with the qualifying draw being made in Warsaw this week on 7th February. In the qualifying tournament there will be 6 groups with 6 teams in and 3 groups with 5 teams in. Only the top team in each group is certain to qualify. The best runner-up will qualify and then the second placed teams in each group will battle it out for the other 4 places.

The qualifiers take place from September 2010 to November 2011. England will be in the top seeded pot, whilst Scotland, the Republic and Northern Ireland will be in pot 3, Wales will be in pot 4.

In the Football Directory, under Research, I have placed a website where you can get free football tips as well as tips for many other sports. It is a great little site and does give full analysis on their selections. You can find it here.

The Friday Footy tip missed out at the weekend, for the first time, with Fulham finding Villa on a going day and were unable to cope with them. However, our lay did come in as Bristol Rovers lost to Wycombe, who you could have backed at 9/2, to bring in a nice little win.

A new Football service has been put in the Systems section, Kick Off Pro is a phone service where the tips are sent by SMS whenever football is on. It deals in all sorts of markets and is great value.

This week I will be looking at a couple of free football systems which I will be passing on to you.