Köln — Best pictures!

We made a prediction about FC Koln’s Lukas Podolski’s overall FTBL rating that has not come true: by October 17, the Germany international was instead 1 rating point beyond our prediction of 120 points.

Some believe the Russian national team has been lucky in today’s draw for the playoffs in World Cup 2010 qualifiers for falling on Slovenia, which are considered less dangerous than, say, a Bosnia-Herzegovina led by Wolfsburg’s prolific striker Edin Dzeko.

After the weekend WC qualifiers, there have been a lot of changes in FTBL top charts. The russian defeat by the german national team let Per Mertesacker get an award of 10 points to his personal rating, entering the TOP-23 chart with 118.27 points.

The russian national team lost again in the matchup against the Germany one, what doesn't surprise anyone: for the last three encounters, russians only could achieve one draw.

Germany manager Joachim Low, after all, decided to leave behind the leader in the FTBL ranking of German strikers, Leverkusen’s Stefan Kiessling. Is it because the youngster has never played for the national team and Low is loath to experiment in such