By Andrew Warshaw
October 16 – The World Cup qualifying programme in Europe reached a nail-biting conclusion Tuesday night as Bosnia-Herzegovina celebrated reaching their first finals as an independent nation, beating Lithuania 1-0 to finish top of their group.
They joined England, Russia and reigning champions Spain on the plane to Brazil along with already-qualified Belgium, Italy, Germany, Holland and Switzerland.
Into the playoffs for the last four available places from the European zone went Croatia, France, Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Ukraine.
While Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iceland were the surprise packages of the entire campaign, Denmark will be the most disappointed country of all, missing out on the playoffs as the second-placed team with the ninth-best record despite a resounding win over Malta. They were edged out by Croatia who finished a point better off despite losing 2-0 to Scotland.
Seeding for the play-offs will be determined by the new FIFA rankings due to be unveiled on Thursday.
Holland, who were the first team to earn their ticket for Brazil, registered their ninth success of the qualifying campaign with a 2-0 win in Turkey. During their campaign, the Dutch scored an average of 3.4 goals per match. The Turks’ loss allowed Romania, who overcame Estonia, to slip in and snatch a play-off slot.
Unheralded Iceland were the revelation of the European qualifying section and picked up the point they required in Norway, guaranteeing themselves a historic play-off spot.
The final qualifying evening of the CONCACAF region was packed with even more drama as Mexico, who have appeared at every World Cup since 1990, squeezed into a play-off slot and a showdown against New Zealand — ironically thanks to their great rivals the United States who made sure Panama missed out.
The Mexicans lost again, this time 2-1 to Costa Rica, while Panama were leading the already-qualified United States until the last few moments. Had they held on for victory, they would have moved above Mexico into fourth spot but the US scored two late goals to win 3-2, ensuring Mexico a last-gasp playoff spot in the process. Honduras as expected clinched the third and final automatic qualifying berth even though they only managed a 2-2 draw against a resurgent Jamaica.
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