By KEVIN KOCZWARA
England sure likes to make their fans sweat. It seems to be part of the process in qualifying for the Three Lions, making an entire country wait and wait. Instead of breezing through a group like fans and the media expect, England is almost always in a state of turmoil with qualification hanging by a thread.
Tuesday’s final group game could have been that kind of day for the English, with Poland looking to nip and force them into a play-off instead of qualifying directly for next summer’s World Cup in Brazil. But the English prevailed with a necessary, if not nerve-racking, 2-0 defeat of the Polish at Wembley Stadium.
With the win that came courtesy of goals from Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard on each side of halftime, the English won Group H by a point more than Ukraine and avoided the deadly play-off scenario with the eight other countries that topped their respective groups.
England join other group winners Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Belgium as the first nine representatives from UEFA to qualify for the 2014 World Cup. The four remaining spots from Europe will be decided via two-legged play-offs between eight of the nine group runner-ups in November.
Ukraine, Portugal, France, Sweden, Iceland, Croatia, Greece and Romania will be the teams trying to punch their tickets to next summer’s tournament after finishing second in their respective groups. Denmark was the odd team out of the play-offs after finishing second to Italy in Group B with 15 points, the lowest total among all of the runner-up teams.
Here are all of Tuesday’s European results (qualified teams in bold, play-off ones underlined) and UEFA’s current top goal-scorers in this qualifying cycle:
Cyprus 0-0 Albania
Azerbaijan 1-1 Russia
Greece 2-0 Liechtenstein
Israel 1-1 Northern Ireland
Lithuania 0-1 Bosnia-Herzegovina
Portugal 3-0 Luxembourg
Hungary 2-0 Andorra
Norway 1-1 Iceland
Romania 2-0 Estonia
Switzerland 1-0 Slovenia
Turkey 0-2 Netherlands
Latvia 2-2 Slovakia
Bulgaria 0-1 Czech Republic
Denmark 6-0 Malta
Serbia 5-1 FYR Macedonia
Faroe Islands 0-3 Austria
Italy 2-2 Armenia
Ireland 3-1 Kazakhstan
Sweden 3-5 Germany
Belgium 1-1 Wales
England 2-0 Poland
France 3-0 Finland
Montenegro 2-5 Moldova
San Marino 0-8 Ukraine
Scotland 2-0 Croatia
Spain 2-0 Georgia
1. Robin van Persie (Netherlands) – 11 goals
2. Edin Dzeko (Bosnia & Herzegovina) – 10 goals
3. Vedad Ibisevic (Bosnia & Herzegovina) – 8 goals
3. Mesut Ozil (Germany) – 8 goals
5. Wayne Rooney (England) – 7 goals
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What do you think of the results? Who was the best team/player in this European qualifying cycle?
Share your thoughts below.
Would it be more interesting to put “playoff” teams from all regions into a head to head selction together? I say yes.
yes please, France vs Mexico…Lol
Croatia, Romania, Greece also still vying for a spot.
agree completely! off to another site to find all eight teams
I wonder why more people aren’t talking about this: there’s a chance that Iceland could go to the World Cup. WOW. How did that happen? Trust me, i’m happy we got Aron, but I hope he isn’t second guessing himself.
I don’t think he’d be second guessing himself, unless Iceland makes it and performs better than the US at the World Cup. If that were to happen, then yeah I could see him having a little bit of buyer’s remorse.
The whole time AJ was deciding, Iceland was looking like they had a shot. However, they are in the playoffs which are no joke in Europe. So the World Cup is far from certain for them.
Iceland have some very good players.
I doubt it was as easy and straightforward for AJ as all of us outsiders think it was.
Nice touch by putting the qualified teams in bold. Something small, but it helped a lot.
“Ukraine, Portugal, France, Sweden and Iceland will be among those teams trying to punch their tickets to next summer’s tournament”
Why not list the other 3? grumble….off to another site to learn which other 2nd place countries made it through.
And when is the draw for these teams.
I listed the other three in the comments above, but I just noticed that all 8 teams are underlined in the post. I’m also wondering when the draw will be. France and Portugal probably hoping they don’t meet.
Ohhhhhh Robin Van Persie!!!!!!!!!!!!