adminMOSCOW. – Spain squeezed 1-0 past dogged Iran in their World Cup Group B encounter last night thanks to a fortuitous goal from Diego Costa, but the Europeans suffered a string of second-half scares.
The veteran forward notched his third goal in two games when Ramin Rezaeian’s attempted clearance bounced off the Spaniard’s leg and into the net in the 54th minute.
Though Spain had besieged the Iranian goal in the first half, they were on the back foot for parts of the second, with Karim Ansarifard rifling into the side netting and Saeid Ezatolahi having a goal ruled out for offside by the Video Assistant Referee system.
The result left Spain joint top of their group with Portugal on four points, but Iran close behind on three going into the third and final set of games.
After two defeats, Morocco are out.
Egypt are also out after Uruguay and host nation Russia progressed to the World Cup knock-out rounds yesterday as Cristiano Ronaldo took an early lead in the race for the Golden Boot.
A single goal from Luis Suarez was enough to give Uruguay victory against Saudi Arabia, leaving them on six points along with Russia and condemning Egypt and the Saudis to an early exit.
Russia and Uruguay will face one of the top two from Group B in the last 16 – either Portugal, Spain or Iran.
Suarez took advantage of a goalkeeping error by Mohammed Al-Owais in Rostov-on-Don to put his side ahead midway through the first half and the Saudis could not respond.
Barcelona forward Suarez has exited the last two World Cups in disgrace after being sent off for a goal-line handball against Ghana in 2010, and he infamously sank his teeth into Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini in 2014.
In the earlier game, in Group B, Ronaldo netted his fourth goal of the tournament in a 1-0 win against Morocco for European champions Portugal, ending the north Africans’ chances of progress.
The five-time World Player of the Year scored with an early header to go with his hat-trick for the European champions against Spain in their tournament opener.
The Real Madrid player, who won his fifth Champions League crown last month, now has 85 international goals – a record for a European player.
“I’m happy I scored the goal, but the most important thing is that we won the game.
“We have to think match by match in order to progress,” he said.
Disappointed Morocco coach Herve Renard said his side could take pride from their performances in Russia despite being out of the running to qualify for the last 16.
“We qualified for a World Cup after 20 years and we’ve showed that we can play football,” he said. “We do play football.”
Hosts Russia beat Egypt 3-1 in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday, a result which paved the way for them to move into the next round despite pre-tournament expectations that they would struggle to get out of their group.
Coach Stansislav Cherchesov was asked if it was the happiest day of his life.
“I hope,” he said, “there are more to come.” – AFP.
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