USMNT Travels to Cuba, No Defections Are Expected

The US Men's National Soccer Team will play on Cuban soil for the first time in over 60 years in tonight's World Cup qualifier. Given the fact that the communist nation hasn't qualified since 1982 and recently their best players have defected with ease it should come as little surprise that the Americans are heavy favorites in their bid to move ever closer to the next step of the interminable qualification process. The game is on ESPN Classic live at 8 pm for all of those Floridians not watching Florida-Miami (namely, the Cubans). Continue after the jump for a breakdown of today's other qualification matches. That could have been ugly. England failed to crack the score sheet in the first half against Andorra before Joe Cole finally opened things up. The Chelsea winger pulled Fabio Capello's nuts out of the fire in the 49th minute, and then gave England some breathing room with another successful strike six minutes later. England was never in any real danger in this match, but going scoreless in the first half against a terrible opponent gives their supporters another reason to get pissed. A bad day for the hosts. As host nation of the 2010 World Cup South Africa doesn't really need to worry about qualifying in the traditional sense, as their inclusion in the final is guaranteed. However, they do have to qualify for the 2010 African Nations Cup, and that is not going well. The South Africans fell to Nigeria 1-0, and now they'll likely face the embarrassment of missing out on the Nations Cup final. Sacre Les Bleus! Samir Nasri and his French teammates were determined to come into qualifying stronger than when the exited Euro '08 prematurely. He's probably pretty pissed right now, because they came out and conceded two first half goals to a weaker Austrian side, including an unfortunate own goal from William Gallas. It was Sidney Govou who brought Les Bleus back into the contest with a goal in the 61st minute, but they would not get any closer. Mexes was called for a foul in the box followed by a successful conversion by Austria's Andreas Ivanschitz in the 73rd minute. Not good times for Raymond Domenech. Full Scoreboard