Geography of soccer

TheLastStraw: It's an education, this World Cup business. It certainly was, memorably, for Paul Gascoigne four years ago when, while on duty for ITV, he watched Senegal beat France.

"Beforehand I'd never heard of them," he told Des Lynam.

"You'd never heard of Senegal," asked Des.

"No," said Gascoigne.

"They've been part of Africa for some time," said Des.

Gascoigne, in fairness, isn't the only football personality to have been a little unfamiliar with the world around him. Indeed, another player, Mark Draper, once famously declared that he would love to play for an Italian club, "like Barcelona".

It struck us that if Gascoigne is hired again by ITV for the 2006 World Cup finals and they ask him to work on the game between Trinidad and Tobago and Serbia and Montenegro, he'd point out that he could hardly cover two matches at the same time.

When you think about it, if Trinidad are allowed team up with Tobago and Serbia are allowed partner Montenegro in world football why can't Ireland form an alliance with, say, Brazil? You'd have to imagine that Ireland and Brazil v Switzerland last Wednesday night would have been a whole different ball game.

We shouldn't count our chickens, though. Trinidad and Tobago haven't yet qualified for the finals, they must first overcome Bahrain in a two-legged play-off. If there are any agencies out there who would like both legs covered, for a reasonable fee (including supplies of sun tan lotion), they can make contact through the address below.

T&T and Bahrain, then, are still in it, unlike ourselves and a fair chunk of the 205 nations listed in Fifa's rankings. Bottom of those rankings is American Samoa, whose 31-0 defeat by Australia a few years back somewhat undermined the claim that "there are no easy games in international football any more".

"God is the righteous one and, because of him, losing by so many goals does not matter," said coach Tunoa Lui after the game, an enchanting response to the setback that meant there would forever be a place in our hearts for the American Samoan team, whose only ever victory came in 1983 when they beat Wallis and Futuna 3-0 in the South Pacific Games. Beforehand, a bit like Gascoigne, we'd never heard of Wallis and Futuna and, to be honest, to this day we're still not sure if it's a haulage company or a nation.

We were, then, quite thrilled to see how American Samoa had come on in the latest World Cup qualifiers, losing only 11-0 to Fiji, 10-0 to Papua New Guinea and 9-1 to Vanuatu. That victory sent Vanuatu - or Ripablik Blong Vanuatu, to give the country its proper name - soaring up the rankings, just behind Lesotho but ahead of Madagascar, a source of some joy for the Football Federation president Johnny Lulu and members of the island's "Jon Frum cargo cult". See? The World Cup qualifying process truly can complete your education.

Second from bottom of the rankings is Guam who, after a run of results that included 19-0 defeats to China and Iran and a 17-0 loss to Tajikistan, decided to give the 2006 World Cup qualifiers a miss. "It's the not competing that matters," if you like.

Next. The Turks and Caicos Islands. Out early after a 7-0 defeat by Haiti, a big improvement on their earlier 14-0 aggregate loss to the mighty St Kitts and Nevis. And fourth from bottom of the rankings, Montserrat, who lost the 2002 game against Bhutan to determine which was the worst footballing nation on earth.

We should, though, remember that Montserrat has had other things on its mind in recent years, including, as Fifa's website tells us, "hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic activity". You have to love Fifa's perspective on these matters: it points out that this string of natural disasters "made the country's only football pitch unplayable".

Anyway, Bermuda put paid to Montserrat's hopes of making it to Germany, beating them 20-0 over two legs. And Djibouti put paid to our dream of seeing one of the world's worst five teams miraculously make it to the finals.

Like Guam, they decided to "forget this for a lark" and became the only one of the 52 members of Fifa's African zone to stay at home and watch it all on telly. As a result they've tumbled below the likes of Afghanistan, Brunei Darussalam and Sao Tome e Principe in the rankings.

Sao Tome e Principe? As any football fan will tell you, without ever having to look up beforehandI'dneverheardofthem.com, it's an island off the west coast of Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea, straddling the equator, west of Gabon.

So there, a lesson in geography like none we ever received in school, all thanks to the World Cup qualifying process.

Come next summer, if Gascoigne takes the time to study the qualifiers, there'll be nothing he doesn't know.

"Ah was gutted that Wallis and Futuna and Ripablik Blong Vanuatu nivva made it," he'll say, "but I'm chuffed to bits, like, that Trinidad and Tobago and Serbia and Montenegro are here, although I canna see all four of them reaching the second roond."

Frank McNally is on leave