High drama in World Cup deciders
Mexico benefits from unlikely hand as Spain tops group and Portugal faces playoff
As was largely expected, trophy-holder Spain qualified for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil on Tuesday night following a solid performance in a 2-0 win over Georgia. Vicente del Bosque's side required a single point going into the game to avoid an unlikely scenario by which France could have secured top spot and consigned Spain to the playoffs. As it transpired, Les Bleus fell a goal short of the four it needed to overturn Spain's goal difference advantage, but had La Roja been held to a blank by Georgia it would have progressed anyway due to its superior head-to-head record against its northern neighbor.
Álvaro Negredo and Juan Mata ensured that fallback was not necessary, the former hitting his second goal in as many games and cementing his place not only as the most lethal striker in Spanish history in terms of goals per minutes, scoring 19 in 10 games, but also surely inching ahead of Fernando Torres, Roberto Soldado et al in the running to lead the line in Brazil. The Manchester City forward missed out on selection for the last World Cup in South Africa, where Spain was proclaimed champion.
Whether or not Negredo will scratch that itch in Brazil may well depend on Diego Costa, the irascible Atlético Madrid striker who is the object of a tug-of-war between the country of his birth and his adopted homeland. Brazil qualifies automatically as host nation and has said it will hand Costa a place in the team if he wants it. Meanwhile, the Spanish Football Federation has received the necessary paperwork to make Costa a Roja player.
It is a footnote to a solid campaign by Spain, which remained undefeated and conceded just three times.
Four of the eight Uefa nations in the knock-out round will be seeded, but France is unlikely to be one of them
Bosnia-Herzegovina made the headlines in Europe by qualifying for a first ever World Cup, while Iceland will also earn a place in the annals of the game — if it successfully navigates the playoff round — as the smallest country ever to appear at a finals. Its opponent could be Portugal, which once again, despite the talent at its disposal, failed to clear the fence at the first time of asking and now faces a potentially tricky route to Brazil: four of the eight Uefa nations in the knock-out round will be seeded, but France is unlikely to be one of them — unless the men in black decide otherwise — due to its lowly Fifa ranking of 25; Croatia, Portugal, Greece and Sweden are the highest-ranked sides, and will be paired with France, Iceland, Ukraine and Romania. The seedings will be announced Thursday and the playoffs draw on Monday.
Uruguay has no such concerns after finishing fifth in the South American CONMEBOL standings on goal difference, to the benefit of Ecuador, which, although beaten by Chile on Tuesday, still qualifies in fourth. The 2010 surprise package, which has a hugely talented and experienced squad, will face Jordan (which, in a nutshell, does not) for a place in the finals. Argentina, which Uruguay defeated 3-2, topped the Latin American table, and along with Colombia was already guaranteed to qualify before a ball was kicked in the final round of matches.
The big surprise in the Central and North American CONCACAF region was that Mexico is in the playoffs while the USA, Costa Rica and Honduras go through to the finals directly. El Tri, a World Cup stalwart that has not failed to qualify since 1982 (the country was barred from Italia 1990 for fielding over-age players in the qualifying phase for the 1989 Fifa World Youth Championship) and has reached at least the last-16 at every tournament since, was a matter of seconds away from elimination, 2-1 down at Costa Rica.
Panama, which has never been represented at a World Cup finals, was beating the USA by the same scoreline and on the verge of sealing fourth place. But the sport is among the cruelest invented, and stoppage time is an eighth circle of hell reserved for teams that switch off before the final whistle. In the 92nd and 93rd minutes, the USA struck to give its neighbor and rival an unlikely helping hand: Mexico will go on to play New Zealand for a place in the finals. The draw for the group stage of Brazil 2014 will be held on December 6.
