After two Ibrahimovic
goals gave Sweden a 2-1 lead with just 18 minutes left, the 28-year-old
scored a quickfire double to turn Tuesday's playoff tie on its head.
Portugal's 3-2 victory in Solna enabled the visitors to qualify as 4-2 aggregate winners.
"I know Portugal needed me in these matches and I showed I am here," Ronaldo told Portuguese TV afterwards.
The hat-trick enabled
Ronaldo to become the joint highest scorer for Portugal, level with
Pauleta on 47 goals, and to take his recent scoring record to an
astonishing 31 goals in 19 games.
The tie had been billed
as a battle between Paris Saint-Germain forward Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo,
and the latter -- who had scored the only goal in the first leg -- was
the clear winner by the end.
Elsewhere,
France qualified for the finals after making history with a 3-2 aggregate defeat of 10-man
Ukraine.
No European side had ever
come back from two goals down to win a World Cup playoff but the 1998
world champions did precisely that when winning 3-0 in Paris.
Strikes from Mamadou
Sakho and Karim Benzema gave the hosts a two-goal lead before an own
goal from Oleg Gusev in the 72nd minute sealed one of World Cup
qualifying's most famous comebacks.
Didier Deschamps was
instantly rewarded when the French Football Federation announced that
his contract had been extended by two years, meaning it will now finish
in 2016.
"It was important for
French football to be in Brazil next year -- when we've got all the
ingredients we can do great things," the coach told French television.
Croatia, who also enjoyed a memorable 1998 finals when finishing third, booked their place when beating Iceland 2-0 in Zagreb.
Bayern Munich striker
Mario Mandzukic opened the scoring but he is set to miss the opening
match of the World Cup in June after receiving a straight red card for a
reckless tackle.
Dario Srna sealed the
win against a nation of 330,000 inhabitants, with the visitors having
been in contention to become the smallest nation in history to reach the
finals.
The final European playoff was decided by Greece, who drew 1-1 in Bucharest to qualify as 4-2 aggregate winners against Romania.
An early strike by
Konstaninos Mitroglou enabled a team that has struggled for goals in
this qualifying campaign to comfortably book a place in Brazil.
In Africa, Ghana
lost 2-1 in Egypt but the quarterfinalist at South Africa 2010 reached a
third straight World Cup by virtue of a dominant first-leg performance,
winning 7-3 on aggregate.
Algeria
ensured that the same five African teams that had qualified for the
last World Cup will be there again, following the weekend qualifications
by Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
Trailing 3-2 from last month's first leg in Burkina Faso, the hosts won 1-0 in Blida to qualify on the away goals ruling.
The two remaining places of the 32 were decided on Wednesday.
Mexico
secured one of them, beating New Zealand 9-3 on aggregate after a 4-2
victory in Wellington, with striker Oribe Peralta adding a hat-trick to
his first-leg double.
Uruguay
also went through despite being held 0-0 at home by Jordan in
Montevideo, with the 2010 World Cup semifinalist having set up a 12th
finals appearance by winning the first leg 5-0 last week.
It was the fourth successive time the two-time world champion had come through the playoffs.
On December 6, the draw to determine the eight groups at next year's World Cup will be held in the Brazilian state of Bahia.
No comments:
Post a Comment