As one of the newer members of the international football family (having affiliated to FIFA in 1986) the Seychelles have only twice attempted to qualify for the FIFA World Cup™ and in both cases the campaign was a short-lived one.

The Indian Ocean island was drawn against Namibia in the first round of the qualifying campaign for the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan, but after drawing 1-1 at home and losing the return leg in Windhoek 3-0, they were knocked out on aggregate.

In 2006, the draw in the African pre-preliminary qualifying round was even crueller, as they had to play against Zambia - then ranked more than 30 places higher than the Seychelles on the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings.

To the islanders credit though, they did not give up against the Zambians, even after losing the first leg at home 4-0. In the return leg, Seychelles earned a creditable 1-1 draw, which was not enough though to keep them in the competition.

This time around, they will have a few occasions to achieve their target of a first win by going directly into the 2nd qualifying round. That gives them six games to break their duck. The Seychelles meet Burundi, Burkina Faso and Tunisia in their opening qualifying group for South Africa 2010.