UEFA Euro 2012 Qualifying: Sweden, France Capture Spots Late; Playoff Teams Set

Euro 2012 Qualifying playoffs

Turkey vs. Croatia

Hands up if you didn’t have Spain winning Group I. If your hand is up, put it down. It’s not ironic or funny and nobody likes you.

Anyway, with Lithuania and Liechtenstein propping up the group, things looked all set up for a shootout between the Czech Republic and Scotland for second place, and Scotland at one point drew to Lithuania, which left them needing to go to Spain and win in order to secure a playoff spot. Needless to say, that wasn’t going to happen, and it’s the Czechs who emerge from Group I alongside the world champions.

The final results are a bit harsh on Norway, who had a solid campaign and probably deserved better. In many groups, they would have been good enough to nick second place. Instead, that honor goes to Portugal. In disappointing fashion, just like with the 2010 World Cup, they will need to qualify via the playoffs. They are one of the seeded teams and cannot draw Croatia, Ireland, or the Czech Republic.

Anyone worth their footballing salt would have had Montenegro as dark horses to challenge Switzerland for runners up behind England in Group G, but I don’t think anyone expected the ease at which they dealt with claiming a playoff spot - they’d already wrapped up second before losing to Switzerland on the final matchday, and they acquitted themselves very well against the leaders with draws in London and Podgorica.

Elsewhere, England did their usual trick of oscilating between good and disappointing, with the most crucial result for them yet to come - this week will see the length of Wayne Rooney’s group stages ban revealed following the Manchester United striker’s straight red against Montenegro. Switzerland could have done better but simply couldn’t recover after losing two of their last three. Wales and Bulgaria, unsurprisingly, were both bad.

Second place brought us a real surprise as Serbia found themselves pipped by tiny Estonia, perhaps in part due to the 3-0 loss they were punished with in Italy after their fans ran riot. That’s not to take anything away from Estonia, however - they managed to earn wins against every team in the group save Italy, including a key 3-1 victory in Belgrade that in retrospect was the major result in the group.

There were interesting stories in slots 4-6, with Slovenia ensuring Serbia wouldn’t take second place and a playoff spot thanks to a second-half penalty save to earn a 1-0 win in the final matchday, while the Faroe Islands managed to notch a rare international win by beating... Estonia, weirdly. What a strange little group this was.

The Turkey-Belgium fight, on the other hand, was an fascinating one, and although Turkey ended up edging things in the end had Belgium been a little bit more careful not to, say, draw 4-4 at home to Austria, the young team may well have found themselves with a place in the playoffs. Instead, that goes to Guus Hiddink’s side, who are still alive for a place in Euro 2012.

None of the rest of the teams in the group were particularly bad, but Kazakhstan were a relative disappointment after a spirited showing in qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup. Still, picking anyone out of Austria, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to emerge from this group with three clearly superior teams ahead of them would have gotten you a hit on the head with the ensaneing stick. Reality agreed.

Poland - Tournament co-hosts

Ukraine - Tournament co-hosts

Things we have learned today:

Turning the score from 1-2 to 3-2 in their favour failed to curtail Sweden’s attacking instinct and they continued to bomb forwards whenever they could, although Holland were mostly giving as good as they got in a match that just wouldn’t stop happening. Huntelaar had a possible equaliser well saved by Andreas Isaksson and Rasmus Elm saw an audacious 50 yard free kick tipped over by Vorm before Cuneyt Cakir signalled for three minutes of injury time - minutes that were successfully navigated by the hosts to put them through as the best second place team in Euro 2012 qualifying.

Michael Krohn-Delhi scored the opener on a deflected shot in the 13th minute, scoring the only goal in the first half as Denmark went into the locker room up 1-0. Portugal pressed for an equalizer late in the half, but came up empty despite numerous chances.

The away team has done all of the attacking thus far at the Stade de France, and it’s going to take a major turnaround from France for this result to turn. If Bosnia wins, they qualify directly for Euro 2012 while France goes to the playoff round.

45 minutes left, Serbia. It may be time to calm down and stop firing off random shots. Make Samir Handanovic work for it, y’know?

Denmark had a goal on a set piece disallowed curiously in the sixth minute, but they were able to find a go-ahead goal just seven minutes later. Michael Krohn-Delhi, a wide player who is very adept at finishing scored the goal in the 13th minute, getting a little bit of help from a deflection. Portugal’s defense looked poor in the beginning of the match, and Denmark continued to look like the better side shortly after their goal.

In what was one of the most boring football matches ever to be played (ok, at least one of the most boring in today’s round of Euro 2012 qualification, even including such pointless matches as Kazakhstan - Austria), Turkey managed a 1-0 win over Azerbaijan to claim the playoff spot in Group A.

The pivotal moment in the match turned out to be the substitution of Kazim-Kazim. The forward had been, quite frankly, crap, firing quick shots to nowhere. With his strike partner out of the way, it was time for Burak Yilmaz to shine. The Trabzonspor forward had a headed goal disallowed for offside, but just a minute later, took a through-ball around the Azerbaijan defense and easily slotted in for Turkey’s only goal.

Germany, meanwhile, won all ten of their group stage games for the first time in history, and have surely cemented their place as one of the favourites to win the 2012 European Championships.

The Republic of Ireland is currently on their way towards securing a playoff spot in Euro 2012 qualifying, but they can’t say they truly deserve their lead. A couple of bad mistakes for Armenia is Ireland’s good luck, and the home side has a 1-0 lead at halftime despite the fact that they haven’t exactly played very good football. Armenia has been playing with 10 men since the 25th minute, but was the better side for the majority of the first half regardless.

Goalkeeper Roman Berezovsky was the man who picked up the red card as he challenged Simon Cox for a 50-50 ball outside of the box, punching it with his hand in the process. While the call looks a bit shaky upon watching slow-motion replay, it’s very easy to see how the referee could have believed that Berezovsky intentionally handled the ball outside of the box. If that’s what the referee believed he saw, he had to show red.

France lineup (4-3-3): Lloris; Reveillere, Rami, Abidal, Evra; Nasri, M’Vila, Cabaye; Menez, Remy, Malouda

Bosnia-Herzegovina lineup (4-1-4-1): Hasagic; Mujdza, Spahic, Pandza, Papac; Rahimic; Pjanic, Misimovic, Medunjanin, Lulic; Dzeko

Sweden lineup (4-4-2): Isaksson; Olsson, Majstorovic, Mellberg, Lustig; Svensson, Elm, Kallstrom, Larsson; Elmander, Toivonen

Netherlands lineup (4-3-3): Vorm; Van der Wiel, Bruma, Mathijsen, Pieters; Van Bommel, Strootman, Van Der Vaart; Kuyt, Huntelaar, Van Persie