London: Switzerland and Croatia kept their hopes alive of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup winning their games in contrasting style Thursday evening against Northern Ireland and Greece.
Switzerland made the most of a controversial penalty converted by Ricardo Rodriguez to secure a 1-0 win to Northern Ireland at Belfast in a pulsating and bruising first leg of their World Cup qualifying play-off. Croatia on the other hand were ruthless in their 4-1 demolition of Greece in another first-leg encounter.
Northern Ireland were stunned just before the hour when Corry Evans turned his back to block Swiss forward Xherdan Shaqiri’s acrobatic volley at point-blank range and Romanian referee Ovidiu Hategan pointed to the spot.
The ball appeared to hit Evans on the shoulder and, even if it did touch the top of his arm, there seemed no possibility he could have got out of its way.
Rodriguez ignored the jeering home fans and calmly sent Michael McGovern the wrong way in the 58th minute to put Switzerland in the driving seat for a place at next year’s finals in Russia.
Too add insult to injury, Evans was also booked and ruled out of the return game Sunday at Basel. “I’m staggered by the decision, staggered by the yellow card,” said Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill. “It’s such a defining moment in the match.”
The Swiss dominated the match despite having to contend with driving rain, a slippery pitch and boisterous home crowd. They created more chances than the hosts and had 64% of ball possession.
Meanwhile Croatia were in complete control of their game at Zagreb. Striker Nikola Kalinic, who stood in for the injured Mario Mandzukic, shone as he won a penalty for Croatia’s opening goal scored by captain Luka Modric and netted the second to give the home side a 2-0 lead at Maksimir stadium.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos pulled one back for Greece before Ivan Perisic made it 3-1 with a thumping close-range header in an action-packed first half.
Andrej Kramaric scored Croatia’s fourth shortly after the break, poking the ball in from two metres after Sime Vrsaljko had cut out a poor back pass.