FIFA: France down, Romania out, Croatia and Portugal, ?

The first round of the play-offs for qualification for the FIFA 2014 World Cup Finals in Brazil took place yesterday in the UEFA zone, the results favouring Ukraine and Greece, Croatia more or less and Portugal or Sweden, given that the heroic header of Cristiano Ronaldo provides a very scant lead.

Iceland 0 Croatia 0; Portugal 1 Sweden 0; Ukraine 2 France 0; Greece 3  Romania 1

Portugal 1 Sweden 0

The Cristiano Ronaldo goal, coming from a header, where the scorer placed his head where most people would not even dare to place their feet, was unique. Is this enough to put Portugal through? It all depends on Tuesday's result in Sweden, a team which went to Lisbon organized, created chances and defended well. Paulo Bento, the Portuguese coach, does not deserve to be absent from Brazil. Some of his pupils maybe do. Whatever the case, the World Cup in Brazil needs Portugal.

Iceland 0 Croatia 0

An amazing result for Iceland, 90 minutes away from World Cup glory, for the first time present in a world cup final phase. True, Croatia will throw everything at Iceland in the return match. One wonders whether the Croatians have also changed the football vocabulary in their language, to add to the idiocy accompanying the other ridiculous changes they made to divorce themselves from Serbo-Croat, stupidly.

Ukraine 2 France 0

It is inconceivable that any Ukrainian who respects the national flag woke up this morning without a headache, after what must be one of the country's best-ever results. The two goals came in the second half, from Roman Zozulia's effort of 61', then a penalty from Andriy Yarmolenko on 82'. France can turn the result around on Tuesday, obviously but if Ukraine can hold off the efforts of Ribery and company, the two-goal cushion is a very good one to have, much better than Portugal's one-goal lead.

Greece 3 Romania 1

A disaster for Romania, one of the most exciting football teams of the last 20 years, totally misunderstood by the international community, however the result confirms the excellent work being undertaken in charge of the Greek national team by the Portuguese coach Fernando Santos. Konstantinos Mitroglou opened the scoring on 14' and Romania's Bogdan Stancu pulled the scoreline back to 1-1 on 19'. One minute later, Dimitrios Salpingidis put Greece ahead and on 66', Mitroglou scored Greece's third.

If Romania scores an early goal in the return match... but Greece will defend, and defend very well. Even in Greece. Fernando Santos proved his mettle in Portugal, and an extremely good coach he is.

 

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

 

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