World Cup Lineup Completed; France Handed Lifeline

November 19, 2009 6:56 a.m. EST

Next summer's World Cup in South Africa is now fully booked.

The 32 nations who will contest soccers biggest prize have been confirmed after the final qualification playoffs were completed last night.

In the European sections, controversially seeded, playoffs, France breathing the biggest sigh of relief after snatching an extra-time goal to proceed 2-1 on aggregate against Republic Of Ireland.

The Republic had given an excellent account of themselves to turn a 1-0 first-leg deficit around in Paris to take the tie to extra-time.

In fact the men in green could, and perhaps should, have wrapped the contest up inside the 90 minutes after John O'Shea, Robbie Keane and Damien Duff all wasted good chances.

France looked lethargic all evening, but received a massive helping hand just before the extra-time interval when a deep free-kick eluded everyone in the Irish box, including two offside French attackers.

The ball looked to be bouncing out of play but Theirry Henry had other ideas.

The French striker, who plays his club football for Barcelona, controlled the ball with his left hand before squaring to former Arsenal teammate William Gallas who nodded the 'pass' home.

Ireland were incensed and surrounded the referee and his assistant in protests which fell on deaf ears, giving France a 2-1 win.

Elsewhere in Europe Slovenia shocked seeded Russia coming back from 2-1 down after the first-leg to progress.

The Slovenians, ranked 49th in the world, beat their fancied opponents 1-0 on the night to progress on the away goals rule.

To compound a miserable night for the Russians, Alexander Kerzhakov and Yuri Zhirkov were both sent off.

2004 European Champions Greece, booked their ticket to South Africa, beating Uruguay 1-0, where they will be joined by Portugal who beat a resilient Bosnian side to progress.

Across the Mediterranean, Algeria clinched their place at their first World Cup finals in 24 years beating Egypt 1-0 in a tense play-off in Sudan.

The sides were forced to playoff after finishing dead level after the group stage, having accrued the same points, scored and conceded the same amount of goals and having an identical head-to-head record.A

The result sparked wild celebrations both across Algeria and the Arab world.

The full list of teams who will fight it out for the World title in South Africa 2010 are:

From Africa: South Africa, Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast

From Europe: England, Portugal, France, Netherlands, Slovenia, Greece, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Serbia, Spain, Slovakia, Switzerland

From North and Central America: United States of America, Honduras, Mexico

From South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay

From Asia and Australasia: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea