And so we near the end. Right now the list is about a minute plus stoppage time from being complete. Peru lead New Zealand 2-0. The surprise South American team are off to Russia (oohh..Chris Wood you should have made it an interesting last minute there...what a miss).
The day ends with Peru and it started with Australia securing spot number 31. Their 3-1 win against Honduras was interesting. After all their missed chances in the first leg and a dominant second half today, they still didn't manage a goal from open play. The first goal was a hugely deflected Jedinak free kick, the next two were Jedinak penalties. The first penalty was one of those where everybody had to wait for a replay to figure out what the ref had seen. And then, after he had allowed a strange advantage to be played, it was a case of, "Ah, ok that was a claer handball." The second penalty was the complete opposite: so obvious that the only disappointment was from the Australian player who was denied a definite goal. Robbie Kruse was about to pull the trigger right in front of goal but the Honduran defender made sure he'd give away a penalty rather than give Kruse the pleasure of a goal.
Peru have done
it. They seemed to come from nowhere to finish fifth in South American
qualifying. The country has waited since 1982 to see them at a World
Cup. A generation of Peruvian children became adults without being able
to support their team at a World Cup. It's a good thing, the joy this
can bring: the exact opposite that the despair non-qualification has
brought to Italy.
This will probably be repeated many times in the run up to Russia but it's worth pointing out how Peru had a huge helping hand from Bolivia and their administrative error. In September 2016 Bolivia beat Peru 2-0. But a month later, Fifa awarded Peru a 3-0 win after it was determined that Bolivia had brought on a player as a late substitute who had previously played for Paraguay in a friendly. He met Bolivia's three year residency requirement to be Bolivian but Fifa rules say a player has to live in a country for five years to be considered eligible to play for that country. Peru edged Chile into fifth place on goal difference, but would have been three points behind but for that "win".
However they or Switzerland got there, they are going to Russia. This part of the fun is over. The next step in the excitement is the draw on December 1st. It's getting closer.
This will probably be repeated many times in the run up to Russia but it's worth pointing out how Peru had a huge helping hand from Bolivia and their administrative error. In September 2016 Bolivia beat Peru 2-0. But a month later, Fifa awarded Peru a 3-0 win after it was determined that Bolivia had brought on a player as a late substitute who had previously played for Paraguay in a friendly. He met Bolivia's three year residency requirement to be Bolivian but Fifa rules say a player has to live in a country for five years to be considered eligible to play for that country. Peru edged Chile into fifth place on goal difference, but would have been three points behind but for that "win".
However they or Switzerland got there, they are going to Russia. This part of the fun is over. The next step in the excitement is the draw on December 1st. It's getting closer.
No comments:
Post a Comment