UEFA Euro 2012 Qualifying: Why Not Just Hand The Trophy To Germany Already?

A moral victory for Finland. Yay Finland!

Netherlands: 21 points (7 games played)

Northern Ireland were only going to stay ahead of a talented Serbia team in the table for so long. Serbia are back in the running for a Euro 2012 place after a deserved victory away in Belfast. They unleashed an absolute onslaught on Northern Ireland’s goal, and they were lucky to only concede once. Though they’re not out of the running for second place yet, this loss seriously crippled Northern Ireland.

Though Slovenia are not one of the true giants of world football, this really is a massive upset. The World Cup 2010 qualifiers were securely in second place in the group and expected to defeat Estonia at home fairly easily. Instead, their place in Euro 2012 is now in serious jeopardy, thanks to their loss and Serbia’s big win. Slovenia’s next two matches are against Italy and Serbia, so they really couldn’t afford to drop three points in this one.

Slovakia, meanwhile, failed to impress while visiting Ireland, getting their fair share of shots in the Aviva Stadium but ultimately having to hold on by the skin of their teeth to come away with a goalless draw that will leave neither team happy - they’re now joint second, two points behind the leaders. It was a good chance for Ireland to put away a decent Slovakia side, but now they’ll have to hope other results go in their favour if they want to qualify.

Finally, Armenia did the totally expected and hammered Andorra, with a first half goal by Marcos Pizelli followed up by strikes from Gevorg Ghazarian and Henrikh Mkhitarian after the interval. This match, unsurprisingly, changes nothing about the group dyanmics - Armenia are still trailing both Ireland and Slovakia and it’ll take a miracle for them to qualify at this point.

Talk about a fun match! Mesut Özil was absolutely on fire in this one, netting a hat trick while doing plenty of work to set up his teammates for chances as well. The scariest thing about this match for Germany’s potential rivals is not that they scored six goals but that Mario Götze and Andre Schurrle both came off the bench and scored. Their young backups are better than most teams’ starters.

What in the world, Belgium?!? Not having Kevin De Bruyne is not an excuse for this result. Belgium played what was mostly a healthy first choice team and somehow managed to not defeat Azerbaijan, who netted an 85th minute equalizer. Belgium’s goal was a penalty, scored by Timmy Simons.