Alexander Mitrovic’s header in the 90th minute allowed Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal to beat Serbia 2-1 in Lisbon, which allowed Serbia to win the automatic qualifiers for the Qatar World Cup. Portugal still has a chance to advance, but must advance to four teams in the playoffs in March. All the teams that reserved World Cup seats in Europe on Sunday did this with dramatic late goals.

Spain only needed to tie in the final match against Sweden to qualify, but Alvaro Morata secured the veteran Swedish star Zlatan Ibrahimovic with the only goal 1-0 in the 86th minute. Rahimovic’s hope of playing in the World Cup again depends on the playoffs. Croatia’s goal of besieging Russia on the water-filled field quickly turned into a swamp and finally paid off.

The Russian defender scored an own goal in the 81st minute, enough to win 1-0. Russia will also participate in the playoffs starting on March 24, and will divide 12 teams-10 runner-ups in the group and two teams that have achieved outstanding results in the National League-into three of four teams team. Each bracket has a World Cup seat.

The draw was held in Zurich on November 26. Portugal was in a strong position when Renato Sanchez scored the first goal only two minutes later against Serbia, but Dusan Tadic kept Serbia in the game with an equalizer in the 33rd game. Mitrovic’s late header calmed the audience and shocked the Portuguese players, including Ronaldo, who was sitting on the court at the final whistle.

“This is an amazing game, well deserved,” Mitrovic said. “I think we deserve to win the game and come to Qatar.” After Serbia failed to qualify for this year’s European Championships, defeating Portugal for the first time marked a reversal. Portugal has a positive factor. Its relatively strong record in the group stage means that it will become one of the seeded teams in the playoffs in March and will win a home draw in the semi-finals of the single leg bracket.

The last time Portugal missed the World Cup was in 1998. Substitute Morata scored the winning goal for Spain, and Danny Olmo’s long shot scored Spain’s 12th consecutive World Cup. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, 40, is fighting to participate in his first World Cup with Sweden since 2006 – he was not selected for the big squad in 2018 – but in the 74th The game cannot be changed after a substitute comes out. Before losing 2-0 to Georgia on Thursday, Sweden seemed to have controlled a movement.

News Source : Hindustan Times