history for Iceland, Serbia clinches berth

history for Iceland, Serbia clinches berth:-

 

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Iceland Qualified for the World Cup for the first time after beating Kosovo-2, While Serbia clinched a sport at next year’s finals with a 1 win over Georgia. Everton midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson and johann Gudmundsson scored in Reykjavik on Monday night as Iceland, With a population of just 450000 became the smallest country to advance to the World Cup finals.

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 quarter final “I thought after Euro that the hardest thing would be to motivate ourselves again,” said Iceland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson. The hardest thing was to get going again after our massive party in France. And What’s more in a group contested between Croatia, Turkey, Ukraine and Finaland. The success is not an end in itself but a long journey towards a final destination.

Iceland needed all three point to secure top spot in European qualifying Group I as Croatia, who sacked coach ante cacic last week, downed ukaine-2 in kiev in the fight to claim second place.

Andrej kramatic struck twice in the second half to send Croatia into next month’s play offs as Zlatko Dalic took charge of his first match following the 1-1 draw with Finland that prompted the dismissal of cacic.

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.

Prijovic struck the winner on 74 minutes in Belgrade as Serbia finished top of group D.with the Republic of lreland heading to the play-offs after a 1-0 victory over wales in Cardiff. I think we deserved this, although it turned out that the the last step was the most difficult one, but we succeeded, coach Slavoljub Muslin said.

Prijovic said the goal was the most important in his career. It was a dream since childhood to score an important goal for the state, he said. James McClean broke welsh hearts with a thunderous 60^th minute strike to keep Irish dreams alive as they leapfogeed their opponents, without the injured Gareth Bale, into second place.

Ireland remain on course for a fist World cup finals appearance since 2002, as surprise Euro 2016 semi-finalist Wales saw their dream of a first trip to the tournament since 1958 turn to dust. The players were magnificent playing away from home at a very good Welsh side. To win on their territory was a great result for us. Ireland manager Martin O’Neill told Sky sports. We are in the play-offs. Whenever the draw is made we will take our chance.

Asier llarramendi 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 is made in Zurich.

Spain dominant

Spain earned more than a World cup berth when it won the difficult Group G. The national team’s successful qualifying campaign, in a group which also included four-time world champion Italy, restored much of La Roja’s confidence following disappointing performances in recent competitions.

Spain will head to next year’s tournament in Russia as one of the title contenders thanks to the impressive qualifying, run that erased many of the doubts surrounding the team following early exits from the 2014 World cup and the 2016 European Championship.

The eliminations raised questions about whether spain could successfully revamp its aging squad, but promising coach Julen Lopetegui and a group of talented young players showed the team is on the right track.

Our qualifying campaign was brilliant. Lopetegui said after spain defeated istael 1-0 on Monday to win the group with 28 point from 10 matches. Five points more than second place Italy.