FIRST it was Craig Foster. Then it was Tommy Smyth. Now it's Arsene Wenger.

It seems like anyone and everyone in the world of football has something to say regarding Australia's chances in South Africa next year. Which would be perfectly fine if there criticisms were legitimate.

Last week on ESPN's Soccernet program, Tommy Smyth was dismissive of Australia's chances at next year's World Cup - "I don't rate Australia's chances widout Viduka to hold da ball up".

I know that I shouldn't take a program called Soccernet seriously, but Smyth's comments prove just how ignorant the football world can be. In the context of the discussion, Smyth's point was that Viduka was integral to the Socceroos' 2006 World Cup campaign and, without him, Australia had little chance in South Africa.

He obviously hasn't been a regular Socceroos watcher because, as my memory serves me, Viduka played really well against Japan then sort of fizzled out a bit in the other three matches (actually, I looked it up and, against Italy, Scott Chipperfield had more shots on goal than Dukes).

And besides, who needs Viduka anyway? Tommy, I have two words for you: Josh Kennedy. We have a new messiah.

Then Arsene Wenger decided to jump on the Australia-bashing bandwagon.

"They have some good defenders who play in the English league, they have Cahill, they have Kewell... But to win the World Cup you need 11 players of that calibre, but can Australia turn up at that level?"

Well, Arsene, I don't think they would've qualified if they didn't have 11 players of that calibre. They might not be playing in the Premier League but players like Chris Coyne, Mark Bresciano and Carl Valeri have certainly been integral to the Socceroos' qualifying campaign.

Of course, he then went on to cut down all his arguments by saying that he didn't actually know much about the Socceroos.

Maybe Arsene is just upset that his beloved France is second to Serbia in its world cup qualifying group. Maybe he's still hurting from France's 3-1 loss to Austria last September. Or maybe he was trying to divert the attention away from Arsenal and onto someone else, though why he chose the Socceroos remains a mystery.

Whatever the explanation, Arsene seems to be a very good description of an old French saying - "les gens qui savant peu parlent becoup, et les gens qui savant beaucoup parlent peu". I'll leave you to figure out what that means...

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Another point regarding World Cups that struck me during the week is the allocation of places per confederation. Is it just me, or does FIFA contradict itself in the distribution of places?

Take the CONCACAF for instance. They get 3.5 places at the WC and, presuming the top 3/4 CONCACAF teams take out these places, these teams have FIFA rankings of 14 - 41. Then, there's UEFA. They get 13 places at the WC and, presuming the top 13 UEFA teams take out these places, their FIFA rankings are from 1 - 17.

If FIFA wanted to get the top 32 teams (according to them) at a World Cup, then, realistically, they'd be giving 0 places to Oceania (sorry Kiwis...), 2 places to Africa, 2 places to North America, 4 places to South America, 2 places to Asia, 22 places to Europe and would've scrapped the host team/s automatic spot years ago.

My point is that the distribution of World Cup places seems to be, quite frankly, stupid. How is it that nations such as Croatia or Ukraine, ranked 8th and 19th respectively, struggle to qualify; yet Costa Rica, ranked 41st, is virtually guaranteed a spot?

And how can the USA gain 28 FIFA ranking points by losing 3-1 to Costa Rica?

Just like Pim Verbeek's choice to leave Nicky Carle on the bench against Bahrain until the game was almost gone, these things will remain a mystery...