Travel Butlers African Safari Blog.

Lezard Bleu is a lovely guest house, situated in the exclusive suburb of Oranjezicht in Cape Town, and Travel Butlers have practically taken over this guest house during the period around England’s first game in Cape Town.

The owners, Chris and Nikola, are certainly looking forward to hosting our customers, and having looked around the guest house last week AND spent a very pleasant few hours one evening in Chris’s and Nikola’s company, I am 100% sure that our customers will just love their stay here !

The rooms are great - spacious, comfortable and a bit quirky, especially the Tree House. There is a large pool, though in June I am not quite sure how much swimming or sunbathing will be done !

The main guest area consists of one large, family style table, around which sumptious breakfasts can be enjoyed, and of course there will be a communal TV so that everyone can watch all the other World Cup games being played inbetween sightseeing.

Nikola runs a small curio ‘corner’ too, and all items are locally sourced and made, so sales will benefit local artists and communities.

The family dogs are always around too, there were 4 at the last count !

We walked to the stadium from here on the Saturday afternoon, and it took about an hour - Chris has already mapped out a route that he is going to recommend to everyone, including where to stop for lunch on the way down (’Fork’ in Long Street … apparently THE best tapas in Cape Town - unfortunately we didn’t quite have time to stop here en-route !!).

After the game, to walk from the stadium back to the Waterfront will take about 5-10 minutes, but we would strongly advise everyone to then take a taxi back to the guest house - please do NOT walk back late at night.

We are absolutely convinced that everyone staying here will have a great time … and we are very envious that we can’t join you … unless someone has a spare ticket ??!!

And then if we get through the group…

Fifa has confirmed the eight seeded teams for next summers World Cup, and England fans will be delighted to hear that they have been confirmed as one of seeds.

The full list of seeded teams is Spain, Brazil, Argentina, England, Germany, the Netherlands, holders Italy and hosts South Africa.

The 32 qualifiers will be drawn into eight groups on Friday in Cape Town when the draw is made from 1745 GMT for next summer’s tournament.

Teams that the seeds will probably be most keen to avoid include France and Portugal (who both narrowly missed out on seeding),  Ivory Coast, and the USA.  Given the way in which the draw is made a worst-case scenario on Friday for England would result see them drawn in a group with France, Ivory Coast and the United States.

Roll on Friday!

Uruguay were relieved to clinch the final place in South Africa with a 1-1 draw in Montevideo which gave them a 2-1 aggregate victory over Costa Rica.

This means that all seven previous winners of the tournament ( Uruguay, Italy, Germany, Brazil, England, Argentina, and France ) will be playing in South Africa.

The full list of qualified teams is:

HOSTS: South Africa

AFRICA QUALIFYING: Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria

ASIA QUALIFYING: Japan, Australia, South Korea, North Korea, New Zealand

EUROPE QUALIFYING: Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland

SOUTH AMERICA QUALIFYING: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay

The draw for the group stages will be made on the 4th December in Cape Town, and as the draw is made we will be updating the Route to The Final section of our site which will show where each team is playing in the group stages, as well as where they will play later on in the competition if they qualify first or second from their group.

A dramatic game in Paris saw Ireland take the lead in the first half and hold on to force extra time in the Stade de France.   After surviving a strong penalty claim by the French (who also had a goal ruled out for offside) France finally scored towards the end of the first period of extra time, although Thierry Henry had handled the ball and the goal should not have been allowed to stand.

Ireland pushed hard in the second period of extra time, but ultimately were unable to score the goal that would have seen justice done in the game and sent them through, and it is France that will be joining the party in South Africa next June and July.

Algeria, Greece, Portugal, and Slovenia had already secured qualification earlier in the day, with the biggest shock seeing Slovenia knockout Guus Hiddink’sRussian side.

With 31 of the 32 teams now confirmed, the last remaining place will be decided when Uruguay play Costa Rica in Montevideo in a game that kicks-off at 23:00 GMT tonight ( Uruguay  lead 1-0 from the first leg ).

You can read more about the tournament including the full list of qualified teams on our World Cup 2010 Guide.

The new Green Point Stadium in Cape Town was lit up last night for the first time as part of the build up for next summer’s world cup.

Cape Town will be host to 6 first-round matches, one second-round match, one quarter-final and one semi-final.  As you can see from the picture, the new 70,000 seater stadium looks spectacular and is only a stone’s throw from the popular Victoria and Alfred Waterfront.

With Table Mountain as its backdrop and the Atlantic Ocean nearby, the stadium has one of the most picturesque settings of any sporting arena anywhere in the world.

The draw for the play-off games that will decide the final 4 European teams that will compete in next year’s World Cup was made a short while ago in Zurich.

The stand out tie sees Giovanni Trapattoni’s Irish side face France over two legs, with the second leg being in Paris.  Whilst this is clearly a huge challenge for the Irish, France will also be very wary of a vastly improved side which came within a few minutes of beating World Champions Italy only a couple of weeks ago.

This seems to be the hardest of the four ties to predict, with Portugal, Ukraine, and Russia all likely to fancy their chances of joining the party in South Africa next year.

The ties will be played over two legs ( with the first leg on Nov 14, and the second leg on Nov 18 ), and the full draw is:

Republic of Ireland v France
Portugal v Bosnia-Herzegovina
Greece v Ukraine
Russia v Slovenia