Online Reporter
SCOTLAND will play in the World Cup football finals for the first time in 28 years after two injury-time goals sealed a dramatic 4-2 victory over Denmark on Tuesday night, while Spain also booked their place at the 2026 finals.
Steve Clarke’s Scotland got the win they needed to qualify from Group C in a thrilling match in Glasgow, thanks to brilliant late goals from Kieran Tierney and Kenny McLean.
Elsewhere, European champions Spain, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland all also booked tickets to next year’s tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada on the final night of European qualifying.
Hampden Park erupted in just the third minute as Scott McTominay scored a sensational overhead kick to put Scotland ahead.
Denmark levelled before the hour mark through a Rasmus Hojlund penalty but were reduced to 10 men when Rasmus Kristensen was sent off.
Lawrence Shankland thought he had stabbed Scotland into the finals, but Patrick Dorgu appeared to have broken the home fans’ hearts late on.
Up stepped Tierney, though, with a magnificent strike from distance in the third minute of added time, before McLean scored from near the halfway line.
Michael Gregoritsch’s 78th-minute goal also sent Ralf Rangnick’s Austria to their first World Cup since 1998 in a 1-1 draw with Bosnia and Hercegovina.
Spain only needed to avoid defeat by seven goals against Turkey to confirm a place at a 13th successive World Cup and goals from Dani Olmo and Mikel Oyarzabal gave them a 2-2 draw in Seville in Group E.
Jeremy Doku and Charles De Ketelaere both scored twice as Belgium booked their place in the finals by thumping Liechtenstein 7-0.
Switzerland extended their run of consecutive World Cup appearances to six with a 1-1 draw against Kosovo in Pristina.
Haiti beat Nicaragua 2-0 to qualify for just their second ever World Cup football finals – despite their manager having never been to the Caribbean island.
The team’s 52-year-old French coach, Sebastien Migne, has been unable to set foot on Haiti since being appointed 18 months ago because a conflict in the country forces them to play their home matches 500 miles away in Curacao – an island nation just off the coast of South American country Venezuela.
Since Haiti’s devastating earthquake in 2010, the country has been in turmoil. Armed gangs have taken control of almost all the nation’s capital Port-au-Prince in a conflict that has forced some 1.3m people from their homes and fuelled famine-level hunger.
Travellers are warned against visiting the nation of 12 million people because of the risk of kidnappings, crimes and civil unrest.
“It’s impossible because it’s too dangerous,” said Migne.
“I usually live in the countries where I work, but I can’t here. There are no more international flights landing there,” he told France Football magazine.
Migne, who was Cameroon’s assistant at the last World Cup, relied on information about local players from Haitian football federation officials by telephone. “They gave me information, and I managed the team remotely.”
Their squad is now all foreign-based and includes Wolves’ France-born midfielder Jean-Ricner Bellegarde.
They also hope to persuade Sunderland forward Wilson Isidor, who was born in France to Haitian parents, to join them.
Haiti’s victory over Nicaragua sealed their place at the summer’s World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada for the first time since 1974.
They will be joined by Panama, who beat El Salvador 3-0, and World Cup debutant Curacao after they drew with Jamaica as qualifiers from the Concacaf region. – AFP/BBC Sport
Bongani Ndlovu