copytaste.com

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

First leg: Nov 14
Second leg: Nov 18

The Republic of Ireland’s hopes of making the World Cup finals suffered a blow after they were drawn against France in the play-offs.

To make matter more difficult for Giovanni Trapattoni’s Irish side, France will also have the advantage of playing the second leg of the play-offs at home.

Irish fans were hoping to draw Greece but instead Ukraine will travel to Athens for the first leg. Portugal will play Bosnia-Herzegovina while Russia take on Slovenia

Trapattoni had criticised FIFA for seeding the play-offs – Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine and Slovenia were all unseeded meaning they could not play each other.

Kevin Kilbane said Ireland were full of confidence ahead of today’s draw for the World Cup qualification play-offs. He said: “We are confident of beating anyone over two legs.”

Fifa have been strongly criticised over the decision to seed the play-offs, which has been perceived as a clear attempt to ease the qualification of ‘big’ teams like France and Portugal.

Trapattoni described the seeding system as the “death of football”, while Republic goalkeeper Shay Given branded them “disgusting” and “totally unfair on the smaller nations”.
telegraph.co.uk

A man living north of San Antonio says he has quite the animal sitting in his freezer — and it may be a mythical chupacabra.

Jerry Ayer, a teacher at the Blanco Taxidermy School in Blanco, Texas, told TV station KSAT that he’s never seen anything like it.

“Different, that’s for sure, very interesting,” said Ayer.

The find comes amid a number of strange sightings in the area. The animal is gray in color with leathery, hairless skin and large fangs.

“The front legs seem to be a little bit longer than a typical coyote, very irregular and never seen any that have legs like that,” said Ayer.

Similar animals have been spotted across the country and deep in South America.

“I don’t know what to call it, I’ll just call it a chupacabra too,” Ayer told KSAT.

He said he came across the animal because a former student of his didn’t know what it was either and sought advice.

“It got into his cousin’s barn and they thought maybe it was a rodent tearing things up, and they had no idea since they’ve never seen it,” said Ayer. “He got out some poison, and this is what they got the very next day.”

Ayer said he plans to preserve the animal with taxidermy. He also said he hopes a local museum will take it for display so everyone can marvel at the strange animal.

“It’s definitely something I don’t want to throw away,” said Ayer. “I think it will be an interesting mount and a tremendous conversation piece.”

The chupacabra myth began not long ago in the 1990s when eyewitnesses claimed to have seen it in Puerto Rico. Farmers there said sheep were found with puncture wounds and were drained of blood. A total of 150 farm animals were reportedly killed by the beast. Since then, sightings have been reported from Chile to Maine.

The mythical beast also found its way into popular culture and television. CNN’s Ed Lavandera called the chupacabra the “bigfoot of Latino culture.” The animal gets its name from Spanish, chupacabra literally means “goat sucker.”

Finds like the one in Blanco have appeared on the History Channel’s “Monster Quest,” they were subsequently determined to be dogs or coyotes.

Visit WBALTV.com to check out the awesome video.