Frontline Football

Ben Anderson investigates the trials and tribulations of the Democratic Republic of Congo's campaign. In a war-torn country, where disease, famine and poverty take a terrible toll, football represents an escape. With no proper pitches on which to train, coach Claude Le Roy takes his team to France. But players flee the camp and he's forced to pay the hotel bill. Can he create a strong team from this chaos to beat South Africa and qualify for the first time since 1974?

BBC Documentary about the fans of Bosnia & Hercegovina and Serbia & Montenegro meeting in the qualifying rounds for the World Cup 2006. Ben Anderson travels to the former Yugoslavia as the national football teams of two countries that fought a genocidal war only ten years ago meet on the football pitch for the first time, in the qualifying rounds for the World Cup. With almost every family touched by tragedy and with the animosity between the two peoples as strong as ever, will the fans be able to confine their passion to the match or will it explode into violence?

Ben Anderson travels to the Middle East to highlight the unenviable predicament of the Palestinian football squad, as they look to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. The war-torn country's involvement in the sport faces a bleak future as pitches are bombed on a daily basis, and team members are unable to train together due to travel restrictions - so organisers must even resort to advertising on the Internet to recruit players.

Once, with the fervent support of cocaine barons, Colombian football was awash with money, and the national team boasted an impressive line-up of talented players. Now the game is in the doldrums, and the country caught in a bloodthirsty civil war. Can a new generation restore national pride by beating hotly tipped Venezuela to qualify for the 2006 World Cup? Ben Anderson finds out.