Thorns and Chelsea women make news in UEFA World Cup qualifiers

Nadia Nadim rescued Denmark’s World Cup hopes
(Photo by Diego Diaz/Prost Amerika)

Denmark stumble opens door for Swedes in World Cup

by Steve Clare

Two results last night threw the European section of Women’s World Cup qualification into greater uncertainty rather than resolved it.

Denmark (16 points) needed an injury time goal from ex-Portland Thorns star Nadia Nadim to rescue even a point against Croatia who prop up the group. Izabela Lojna scored for Croatia on the hour mark.

The Danes now trail Sweden (18 points) who beat Ukraine 3-0 by two points. Chelsea’s Magdalena Eriksson was among the scorers. Denmark host Sweden in the last game with the winner going to France automatically. Sweden will make the playoffs at worst, but a draw or especially a loss will leave Denmark worried about results elsewhere.

Switzerland could have ensured their top place with a draw in Scotland but went down 2-1 with all the goals coming in the first eight minutes. Another Chelsea striker, Erin Cuthbert, and  former Seattle reign striker Kim Little scored the goals before Lara Dickenmann pulled one back for the Swiss. Having won the initial meeting 1-0, Switzerland take the head-to-head on the away goals rule. Portland Thorns Ana-Maria Crnogorčević was a late scrub having been injured in the warm up.

Switzerland now need to win in Poland to ensure automatic qualification. Scotland need to hope that they don’t and win in Albania. A victory against the Albanians would at least see Scotland into the playoffs given that at least three other teams will be unable to top their total of 15 points gained against the top four sides in their respective groups.

The other two results last night did not affect qualification.

There are a slew of matches tonight affecting qualification, none more so than Wales v England at Rodney Parade in Newport. The winners will automatically qualify.

A draw will see Wales finish second unless England slip up in Kazakhstan next week. They will then be sweating on coming out as one of the top four second place teams although it now looks like 14 points from the six games that count will be enough to secure that. Wales are yet to concede a goal in seven qualifying matches and it is that defence that England will need to breach.

Any dropped points for Belgium in Romania will ensure that the they are one of the worst second placed sides with an insufficient record to make the playoffs. That increases everybody else’s chances. Finland will need to win in Spain to retain any chance of beating Austria to second, but neither is likely to get sufficient points to make a playoff from the Group which Spain have won comfortably.

Spain and Italy are still the only automatic qualifiers with just a handful of games to go.

RESULTS

Thu 30/08/18
Russia 3 : 0 Kazakhstan
Moldova 0 : 7 Portugal
Sweden 3 : 0 Ukraine
Denmark 1 : 1 Croatia
Scotland 2 : 1 Switzerland

FIXTURES

Fri 31/08/18
Belarus v Poland
Czech Republic v Slovenia
Republic of Ireland v Northern Ireland
Romania v Belgium
Spain v Finland
Slovakia v Norway
Wales v England

Sep 1/09/18
Iceland v Germany