Soccer

UEFA 2014 World Cup qualifying recap: Sweden wins to keep hopes alive, Denmark crushed

Sweden’s World Cup dreams are alive, but Denmark looks set to watch the tournament from their couches after a drubbing at the hands of Armenia.

by Ryan Rosenblatt

Jun 12, 2013, 4:54 AM UTC

Boris Streubel

Sweden and Denmark entered Tuesday's World Cup qualifiers both needing wins to keep their dreams of a trip to Brazil alive, but only one got what they were looking for. The other was just embarrassed.

Denmark 0-4 Armenia

The Danes were four points back of second place Bulgaria and eight points behind first place Group B, but they had a match in hand so they weren’t dead yet.

Now they are.

Yura Movsisyan scored just 24 seconds in and Armenia were off. He added another and Arad Ozbiliz and Henrikh Mkhitaryan each scored as well to embarrass Denmark. Now the Danes have almost no shot at qualifying for Brazil, just like Armenia, but at least the Armenians showed up to play on Tuesday.

Sweden 2-0 Faroe Islands

Teams rarely get excited to beat the Faroe Islands, but with Sweden three points back of second place Austria in Group C of World Cup qualifying, any win would do and the Swedes were certainly happy to get a victory on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, Sweden proved to be Zlatan Ibrahimovic and 10 other guys (eventually nine because Andrea Granqvist was sent off in the 79th minute) as he scored twice to lead the home side to three points and a tie for second place in the group.

Belarus 1-1 Finland

Teemu Pukki put Finland in front before the half-hour mark, but Smitri Verkhovsov rescued a point for Belarus five minutes from time. Unfortunately for both, it's unlikely to matter because Spain and France look set to claim the top two spots in Group I.

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