The juiciest part of the international football calendar has arrived – the 2014 FIFA World Cup playoffs. The smashing of hopes and the realising of dreams arguably makes this period more exciting than the bloated and increasingly dour World Cup.

Apart from being played in the sterile and corporate atmosphere in the concrete monoliths that FIFA demands the host nation builds (seriously; Brasilia is soon to be home to a 50,000 seat stadium, even though its local team has an average attendance of about 3,000), the playoffs are played in front of passionate home crowds at storied national stadiums.

Also to be considered is the fact that for so many nations, winning the World Cup or even making the knockout stages is an achievement far beyond expectations.

To make it to a World Cup, even if it is to be beaten to a pulp (like Saudi Arabia in 2002), is a major milestone up there along with having a child, buying a house, or managing to score a goal by kicking a ball into your own face.

In fact, most of a history of Australian football would be dedicated to our numerous World Cup playoff failures and our fantastic success eight years ago.

UEFA has eight nations vying for their four remaining spots, while CAF (Africa) uses playoffs as the sole way to decide their five places at the World Cup.

The remaining two spots are decided by inter-confederation playoffs, with Uruguay (CONMEBOL – South America) playing Jordan (AFC – Asia) and New Zealand (OFC – Oceania) facing Mexico (CONCACAF – North and Central America).

The first legs of these last two playoffs were completed on Wednesday, earlier than other playoffs so as to compensate for around-the-world travelling.

Both games have left little doubt as to who is to go through, with both Uruguay and Mexico scoring five goals each against their opponents, and only conceding one between them.

Portugal vs Sweden
A very exciting clash to look forward to, if only for one reason: Ronaldo vs Zlatan.

Even if this means that one of the two most enigmatic footballers won’t grace Brazil with their teammate-growling eyes and historiographic talents, a finals fervour will still inhibit this tie, considering what’s on the line and the show these two are going to give us.

Apart from their two star men, both nations have their own considerable drawbacks. Sweden, for starters, doesn’t have a very good squad.

The only players of note are perhaps defender Jonas Olsson of West Brom, mid-table midfielder Sebastian Larsson (Sunderland) and Johan Elmander, who despite his obvious skill isn’t a reliable goalscorer, only finding the net for Norwich twice against Bury (2second in League Two) in the League Cup.

Sweden (20 points) only just got over the line in their group, containing Germany (who only dropped 2 points), Ireland, Austria, Kazakhstan and the Faroe Islands. A win against third-placed Austria (17 points) in the penultimate game sealing their playoff qualification.

Credit is due to Sweden, though, they did stick it to the man. The German man, that is: their two meetings with Germany produced 16 goals between them, a thrilling 4-4 draw in Berlin, (Sweden being 4-0 down at the 55th minute, Hollywood’s Rasmus Elm scoring the equalising goal in injury time) the highlight of probably the whole European qualification process.

The return game, in Stockholm, ended 5-3 to Germany, Chelsea player André Schürrle stealing the show with a game-winning hatrick.

Portugal, on the other hand, has a pretty handy team beyond Cristiano Ronaldo, with players such as Fabio Coentrão, Joao Moutinho, Raul Meireles and Luis Nani, to name but a few.

The team’s cohesion and management isn’t their strong point, having struggled for a number years in the qualify stages despite the nation’s numerous talents, going through a few coaches in the process.

For the 2010 tournament and Euro 2012, they needed playoff wins against Bosnia (both times) to reach the holy land, despite being the top dog and seeded first in both groups, Denmark (also both times) winning the groups.

In an easier group than those two times, Portugal have yet again failed to automatically qualify. Russia, despite losing away to Northern Ireland, beat Portugal to the top by one point.

Portuguese coach Paulo Bento described this as a “finely-balanced playoff”, but Portugal’s overall better squad should overcome Sweden’s rather mediocre one.

Although of course, you’d have expected them to come top of a group with Israel, Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Northern Ireland and Russia.

What’s more, Ronaldo may miss the first or both games due to a niggling ankle-knack.

Ukraine vs France
Ah, France. Although a reasonable argument, they’ve had the gall to complain to UEFA about the seeding procedure, even though the seeding nonsense was only brought in for their benefit (and even with all that help, Thierry Henry had to do that).

In short, France hasn’t been seeded for this year’s playoffs, and their protest concerns their lack of competitive matches (thus seeding points) due to their placement in the small UEFA group.

France basically did as well as they could’ve in their group, only coming three points behind world leaders Spain.

Team harmony has seemingly returned since the shenanigans in South Africa last time around, although the inclusion of Patrice Evra (former captain and chief mutineer in South Africa) is ruffling more than a few feathers in the national team and the wider French public.

Otherwise, the team’s form has been good, Didier Deschamps’ sensible management being incredibly welcome compared to Raymond Domenech’s perplexing leadership.

The 1-1 draw against Spain especially, has renewed French fans’ hope and confidence in their national team.

Ukraine are solid-if-unspectacular, with their top-scoring spectacle (Andre Shevchenko) retiring from football last year (comparable to Sweden’s situation, if Zlatan retired).

To add to their to their lack of jazz, all but one of their players play their football in Ukraine – Anatoliy Tymoschuk, formerly of Bayern Munich, is the exception, chipping away in Russia.

However, Ukraine do have a gem to look out for – 24-year-old left winger Andriy Yarmolenko, capped only 36 times, has already scored 13 goals.

While France has great talent in spades, Ukraine only has it only occasionally, but they do have a host of solid players.

While Ukraine did manage to push top-seeded England to the final week of group qualifying, England is an overrated team, on paper and grass only a bit better than Ukraine.

A French slip-up wouldn’t be a surprise, but expect them to go through to Brazil comfortably.

Greece vs Romania
The Mediterranean nation’s shock, shock, shock win at Euro 2004 still continues to bear fruit for them.

In a case study of riding one’s luck, since 2004, Greece has managed to avoid being grouped in UEFA qualifying with the strongest of the top teams, instead being drawn with the weaker nations of the top eight.

For example, for the 2006 World Cup they had Turkey join them from Pot A, and not, say, Italy; for Euro 2008, they were in Pot A themselves, Turkey being the next-highest ranked team in their group (and not Germany, Italy or Spain); for 2010 they were drawn with Israel (not England or Russia) and Switzerland (not Serbia or Ukraine).

By having all these easier-than-expected groups, they’ve kept qualifying, despite the lack of individual quality in the team, thereby maintaining a high ranking (they’re currently 15th, and that was after a recent drop of 5 places).

So again, for this qualification process, they were top-seeded, and paired with (in order of pot) Slovakia, Bosnia, Lithuania, Latvia and Liechtenstein.

A fairly easy group, to be sure – yet Greece scored only 12 goals in their 10 games, yet tied on points with group winners Bosnia (who scored 18 more goals).

Romania, on the other hand, managed to scrape into the playoffs in what was a very competitive Group D (well, that is if you ignore the impeccable Netherlands, scorer of 34 goals and baggers of 28 out of 30 points).

Gone are the days as a potential dark horse, Gheorghe Hagi no longer master of the reins.

They haven’t been to a World Cup since France ’98, and haven’t even made the playoffs since 2002.

So, despite the fact Romanians aren’t made of players plying their trade at the top clubs like Chelsea, Juventus and Real Madrid, the chance at World Cup football via the playoffs must certainly be seen a great sign of progress by Romanian fans.

Indeed, they should be happy that they drew Greece, and not one of Ukraine, Portugal or Croatia.

I’d love to be wrong, but this fixture will be a dour affair, with Romania seeking to counter-attack the Greeks, who as always will be stuck to their defensive style.

However, the Greek attack might find an edge over an opposing defence lacking Tottenham’s new boy, Vlad Chiriches, out with a fractured nose.

Croatia vs Iceland
If Iceland was to win this fixture, the football hipster world would surely explode with glee.

The tiny north Atlantic nation, formerly of cod-fishing, until recently investment-banking, and now of privacy-protecting fame, will be one of the smallest (if not the smallest) countries by population size to make the World Cup.

It’s great to see careful and considered football administration be successful, the decisions made, like investing in many new indoor football pitches throughout the usually frosted country.

These decisions are now sprouting players like Gylfi Sigurthsson, Kolbein Sigthorsson and Johann Berg Guthmundsson, most of the current team coming up together from the U-21 setup (which also managed to be one of eight teams to reach the finals of the U-21 Euros in 2009, a first for Iceland).

Iceland, drawn in a not-too-difficult, yet competitive, group with Switzerland, Norway, Slovenia, Albania and Cyprus, managed to scramble to second under the shrewd stewardship of Swedish coach Lars Lagerbäck – which in hindsight, is another lovely move by the Icelandic FA.

The Swedish coach has a good international record, guiding his native country to qualification for 5 tournaments in a row, including winning the ‘group of death’ (England, Argentina, Nigeria) in 2002.

In a short stint in 2010 in Nigeria, he was a Yakubu point-blank miss against South Korea from making it to the knockout stages. If he could guide Iceland to the World Cup, it’d be his best work yet.

It is quite surprising that Croatia so often struggles in international football, considering the great amount of talent that this nation of four million manages to produce, having not even made the last World Cup and their best result post-1998 (3rd place in France) being a quarter-final appearance in Euro 2008.

Their coach, Igor Stimač, has been sacked after a poor run, winless in their last four competitive games, including a double loss to Scotland.

Like Greece, they have only scored 12 goals, which hints at major problems in a squad containing Champions League match-winner Mario Mandžukić.

Former captain Niko Kovač has been parachuted into the hot seat, the games against Iceland being his first top level games as manager.

Iceland are favourites in the first leg, to be played in their capital Reykjavik. This game will be quite interesting watch, as it is an overperforming squad playing an underperforming squad laden with some massive talents.

Also, our old friend Eidur Guthjohnsen is still a part of the national squad, at the ripe old age of 35.

Lagerbäck sums up the mood in this matchoff that is all about the fairytale:

“Of course it would be a huge disappointment if we didn’t get to Brazil now that we are so close but, as far as I am concerned, we are in a win-win situation,” he said.

“There weren’t many outside Iceland and, to be fair, on Iceland who expected us to get this far, even though the expectations have grown the further we have got in qualifying.

“But I hope people are not thinking that (it would be a huge disappointment to miss out). I am certainly not thinking that way.”

Predictions
I’ll be honest, I put money on Ukraine to beat England to top spot in their qualifying group, back when there were two group games left. England emphatically saw off Montenegro and Poland, much to my wallet’s disappointment.

I predict Iceland and Portugal to qualify comfortably, although due to different reasons: Iceland has great team cohesion and strong management over Croatia’s crumbling structure; and Portugal’s sheer talent should breeze past Sweden’s mediocrity (although Zlatan might have a thing or two to say).

France, on the other hand, might find it hard to dismiss Ukraine, although the last time the two played, in Euro 2012, France easily beat them.

Greece will probably bore Romania to death, a strategy they probably intend on using in the World Cup in yet another tournament appearance which will unremarkable for the football, but remarkable for a nation which has the football side being the only thing going well for it for quite a while.

I’ll deal with the African playoffs in a post to come up in the next day or two. They’ve already played their first leg, with the second legs being played over 17-19 November.