Sport

Portugal and Greece secure chance to stand in Ireland's way to South Africa

GROUP ONE: Portugal sealed a place in the play-offs by beating Malta 4-0 in Guimaraes last night

Thu Oct 15 2009 - 01:00

GROUP ONE:Portugal sealed a place in the play-offs by beating Malta 4-0 in Guimaraes last night.
Nani, Simao Sabrosa, Miguel Veloso and Edinho scored to leave Portugal second in the group on 19 points, behind Denmark but one point ahead of Sweden, who beat Albania 4-1.

Group winners Denmark were beaten 1-0 at home to Hungary.

GROUP TWO:Greece secured a place in the play-offs by claiming a straightforward 2-1 victory over 10-man Luxembourg. Two headed goals in three minutes just after the half-hour mark from Vasilis Torosidis and Theofanis Gekas put the Greeks on their way at the Olympic Stadium.

Switzerland drew 0-0 with Israel in Basle to seal top spot in with 21 points, just one more than Greece.

GROUP THREE:Slovakia qualified for their first ever World Cup finals, clinching top spot with a 1-0 win in Poland.

Slovakia produced a lacklustre performance in poor weather conditions but an own goal by Polish defender Seweryn Gancarczyk in the third minute sufficed to send them through.

Slovenia went through to next month's play-offs after winning 3-0 at San Marino.

Milivoje Novakovic put Slovenia ahead midway through the first half and Dalibor Stevanovic doubled their advantage in the second period before Marko Suler added the gloss nine minutes from time.

GROUP FOUR:Germany, already through to the World Cup, needed a last-gasp equaliser by striker Lukas Podolski to grab a 1-1 draw with eliminated Finland. Germany, who beat second-placed Russia 1-0 on Saturday to seal top spot, went behind after 11 minutes.

Wales ended a disappointing campaign with a 2-0 victory over Liechtenstein in Vaduz. David Vaughan scored his first international goal and Aaron Ramsey got Wales' second.

GROUP FIVE:Alvaro Negredo scored twice as European champions Spain cruised to a 5-2 victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina to make it 10 wins out of 10 in qualifying.

Vicente del Bosque's side had already secured their place in the finals with two matches to spare and Bosnia were sure of a place in the play-offs thanks to Saturday's 2-0 win over Estonia.

Apart from Negredo's double, Gerard Pique David Silva, and Juan Manuel Mata scored for Spain while Edin Dzeko and Zvjezdan Misimovic struck for Bosnia.

GROUP SIX:Ukraine secured a place in the play-offs when Andriy Shevchenko scored to set up a 6-0 thrashing of Andorra.

England had already qualified and Ukraine sealed second place with 21 points from 10 matches, one ahead of Croatia who won 2-1 in Kazakhstan.

GROUP SEVEN:France warmed up for their play-off by beating Austria 3-1 at Stade de France. Forward Karim Benzema opened the scoring on 17 minutes and Thierry Henry doubled the advantage from the penalty spot before Andre-Pierre Gignac sealed France's win.

Two penalties gave Lithuania a 2-1 win over group winners Serbia.

On their way to South Africa

AFRICA (5 places)

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Qualified:Ivory Coast, Ghana.

ASIA (4.5*)

Qualified:Australia, North Korea, South Korea, Japan.

* Bahrain to play New Zealand of Oceania in a play-off.

EUROPE (13*)

Qualified:Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England, Italy, Serbia, Switzerland, Slovakia.

* Four second-placed teams to qualify from play-offs.

CONCACAF * (3.5**)

Qualified:Mexico, USA.

* Does not include last night’s matches.

** Fourth-placed team to play South American opponents in play-off.

OCEANIA (0.5*)

* Winners New Zealand face Bahrain from Asia zone in a play-off.

SOUTH AMERICA* (4.5**)

Qualified:Brazil, Paraguay, Chile.

* Does not include last night’s matches.

**Fifth-placed team to play CONCACAF opponents in play-off.