Yes, at it again. More World Cup information over on the countdown to South Africa blog.

You can find a link to your right, and here’s another.

Pretty wild day out there.

Nigeria jumped Tunisia on the final day of group qualifying to snatch a bid to South Africa 2010 … New Zealand is headed for the finals for the first time since 1982 … France actually scored a goal, and is in charge against Ireland … and Egypt got a goal in the final seconds against Algeria to force a one-game playoff between the two, and extend what had been a contentious and even violent weekend.

The Egypt-Algeria match was such an emotional event that Egyptian fans here in Abu Dhabi (and I didn’t even know we had many Egyptians here) were driving up and down the main streets, honking horns, waving flags, for two hours after the match ended.

When the horns first went off, we thought it was the mother of all traffic jams. Then when the horns persisted for, oh, a half hour, we wondered if perhaps Pakistan had done something good in cricket. Only after studying the cars, and discerning the white, red and black flag of Egypt … did we realize it was the UAE’s Egyptian expats celebrating … a tie.

Twenty-six nations have booked their places in South Africa, with six to go.