This past week has yielded Serbia its qualifying group for 2012: Italy Serbia Northern Ireland Slovenia Estonia Faroe Islands Overall, a very balanced group as Marcello Lippi points out. It is the only group where there are three world cup qualifiers. Northern Ireland is also really good at home, and Estonia is usually difficult to break down at home as well. I fancy our chances as Italy is the best team we could have gotten from pot 1 besides Germany. They play at a similar tempo to us and I can see them being overrun at the Marakana once they come to Belgrade. De Rossi and Aquiliani have some experience against Zigic.
Serbia's coach has been fired and will be replaced by Vladimir Petrovic http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/9002826.stm
The first results in our qualifying section: Serbia 1-1 Slovenia Faroe Islands 0-3 Serbia As for our coach getting fired... they have some really serious internal problems inside the FA and practically forced him out which is a real shame. The man they replaced him with was a good footballer and a decent coach as he showed in the mid 1990's and last year with Red Star Belgrade, but he is very defensive. Given our lack of forwards this will only make it harder to score, therefore I am really unsure about the move.