Paris: Iceland became the smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup when they booked their place Monday for Russia with a 2-0 win over Kosovo. Meanwhile Serbia clinched a spot at next year’s finals with a 1-0 win over Georgia.
Everton midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson and Johann Gudmundsson scored in Reykjavik as Iceland, with a population of just 3,30,000 (lesser than that of Bhubaneswar), sealed a historic berth in a World Cup.
It is the tiny northern European island nation’s second successive appearance at a major tournament after their shock win over England in a surprise run to the Euro 2016 quarterfinals.
“I thought after Euro 2016 that the hardest thing would be to motivate ourselves again,” said Iceland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson after the game. ‘This qualification is all the more satisfactory, because we had tough teams like Croatia and Ukraine in our group.”
Iceland needed all three points to secure top spot in European qualifying Group I as Croatia, who sacked coach Ante Cacic last week, downed Ukraine 2-0 in Kiev in the fight to claim second place. Both goals were scored by Andrej Kramatic in the second half to send Croatia into next month’s play-offs.
Aleksandar Prijovic scored after coming on as a second half substitute to cement Serbia’s place in Russia, ending an eight-year major finals absence.
Meanwhile in other games played James McClean broke Welsh hearts with a thunderous 57th-minute strike to keep Irish dreams alive as they leapfrogged their opponents, without the injured Gareth Bale, into second place.
Asier Illarramendi netted the only goal in Jerusalem as Spain completed their successful qualifying campaign with a 1-0 win over Israel, while Antonio Candreva grabbed a second half winner for Italy in a 1-0 victory away to Albania in Group G.
Italy will be the top seeds for the November play-offs, the draw for which will be made October 17 in Zurich.
Agence France-Presse
