Another round of matches counting for 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa qualifications is about to begin. The main attraction of this round is the South America derby facing Argentina and Brazil. Only the top four teams in the South America group will qualify to the World Cup while the fifth placed team will enter a home-and-away playoff with the fourth placed team from North, Central America & Caribbean.

Currently, Brazil which is the No. 1 ranked team in the world, leads South America Group with 27 points followed by Chile – 26 points, Paraguay – 24 points and Argentina – 22 points. Next two teams are Ecuador with 20 points and Uruguay with 18 points. For the moment the top four teams in North, Central America & Caribbean Group are Costa Rica (12 points), Honduras (10 points), USA (10 points) and Mexico (9 points). It looks very easy to predict but with four more matches to be played for every team in this two groups everything is possible.

Major online bookmakers already made their odds for the Argentina – Brazil match. All of them see Argentina as a favorite with 2.20 odds while Brazil has around three to one chances to win the game.

Diego Maradona, the Argentinean coach, believes that his team will assure its qualification to the World Cup if they beat Brazil on Saturday 5th September. Sebastian Dominguez has been given his first call-up to the Argentina national squad joining other seven home-based players that Diego Maradona recently added to his party.

Argentina will face Paraguay, currently the third team in the South America Group on September 9, Peru on October 10 and Uruguay on October 13.

On the other hand Dunga, Brazilian coach recalled Adriano, currently playing at Flamengo and Lucas, the Liverpool midfielder. Diego Tardelli (Atletico Mineiro), who made his debut in this month’s friendly in Estonia, was dropped to make room for Adriano. Except these changes Dunga kept mainly the same squad that won the Confederations Cup in South Africa in June.

Brazil will meet Chile four days after Argentina and has two more matches against Bolivia on October 10 and Venezuela on October 13.

200 teams have entered the race for the 31 available places at the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. Australia, Japan, Korea DPR, Korea Republic and Netherlands join the South Africa team, automatically qualified as the host, in the first qualified teams group.

Some major online bookmakers already made the odds for the team that will win FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010 and Brazil, Spain and Argentina are considered the main favorites.