Chapter 496 Straight to Russia

Time has entered October 2017, and world football is ushering in another international match day.

For most continents, this international match day is an extremely critical moment for each national team, because it will be their final battle for next year's World Cup in Russia.

On the international match day in September, eight rounds of the Russian World Cup European qualifiers have been conducted, but except for Belgium in Group H, which has advanced ahead of schedule, no team has received a ticket to Russia next summer.

In Group B, where Portugal is located, the situation is still very anxious. Although Portugal tops the list with eight consecutive wins, Switzerland closely follows with 7 wins and 1 loss.

If nothing else happens, the two teams will have to decide in the final round who will get a direct ticket to Russia, and who will go to the play-offs to compete for the final chance to go to Russia.

In the ninth round of the group stage, the matches between Portugal and Switzerland started at 9:10 pm on October 7, Central European Time. Switzerland played at home against Hungary, which had already been eliminated early, while Portugal went away to challenge Andorra, which was at the bottom of the group. you.

With the strength of Portugal and Switzerland, there is no problem in defeating their opponents. The key is to see what score they win.

However, in the case of Portugal and Switzerland, comparing goal difference is meaningless because Portugal's advantage is too obvious.

小组前8轮后，葡萄牙打进43球失4球，净胜球高达39个。而瑞士则是进18球失6球，净胜球只有12个。

In fact, as long as Portugal defeats Andorra in this round's away game, it will basically lock in the first place in the group and go straight to Russia.

After all, even if Switzerland defeated Portugal at home in Portugal in the last round, it would be impossible for them to erase their 27 goal difference disadvantage.

If Switzerland wants to make a comeback and qualify for the World Cup finals as the first in the group, it not only needs to win the next two rounds in a row, but also needs to count on Portugal making mistakes and losing points in the game against Andorra.

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Facing Andorra away from home, Portugal is bound to win. Because as long as they win this game, it will be difficult for Switzerland to come back.

There were indeed no surprises in the game. Portugal, which played with all its main players, finally swept Andorra 5:0. Bruno shot and passed twice, and Ronaldo also scored twice.

At this point, the situation in Group B can be said to have been settled.

Although Switzerland defeated Hungary 5:2 at home in this round and reached 24 points, it is still 3 points behind Portugal, and the goal difference advantage has expanded to 29 goals.

If Switzerland wants to make a comeback, unless it beats Portugal by 15 goals in the final round, Portugal will advance to the World Cup finals as the first in the group.

It can be said that the final round of the group stage has actually lost the meaning of competition. Portugal's goal in the final round is to win the group stage, while Switzerland's goal is to avoid being double beaten by Portugal.

After all, they are well-deserved to be second in the strongest group. The 24 points they have obtained are enough to win the first place in the remaining eight groups in Group A, Group D and Group I.

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Although the match between Portugal and Switzerland has lost its significance from the perspective of competing for qualification, the match was very intense. For the sake of dignity, the Swiss team also set up a steel barrel formation on the away field.

The Portuguese team played very hard in the first half. It was not until the 27th minute that Bruno forced the former Arsenal central defender of the Swiss team to score an own goal, taking the lead in breaking the deadlock on the field, but then the Swiss team played a Bo counterattacked and once continuously threatened the Portuguese team's goal.

In the first minute of stoppage time in the first half, Bruno broke into the penalty area and scored again, further expanding the score for the Portuguese team.

Although they were two goals behind, the Swiss team still did not give up. They showed their tenacious resilience in the game and proved that they are not a weakling who can be exploited by others.

But compared with Portugal, which has two of the top three superstars in world football, Bruno and Cristiano Ronaldo, there is indeed a big gap in Switzerland's strength.

In the 56th minute, Portugal took advantage of a counterattack opportunity, and Bernardo Silva assisted Andre Silva to score the third goal of the game for the Portuguese team.

But just five minutes later, Bruno made a breakthrough on the right and made a precise pass into the penalty area. Ronaldo headed the ball into the goal, once again extending the score advantage to four goals.

By this time, the Swiss finally lost their fighting spirit, and the Portuguese team began to control the game more and stopped attacking aggressively.

In the end, Portugal defeated the Swiss team 4-0 at home, ending all the group stage matches with ten consecutive victories.

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At this point, the group matches of the European qualifying stage of the World Cup in Russia are all over, and Portugal has become one of the only two teams to have a complete victory. The other team is the German team.

The German tank also performed very well in this qualifier. In Group C with Northern Ireland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Azerbaijan and San Marino, they defeated all opponents, scoring 43 goals but conceding only 4 goals. Portugal and Croatia are tied for the third-fewest goals conceded.

As for the two teams that conceded the fewest goals, England and Spain both conceded only 3 goals.

Portugal, which scored 52 goals, is the strongest among the 54 European teams participating in the qualifiers, even scoring 9 more goals than the German and Belgian teams behind them!

Bruno, who scored 19 goals, is the top scorer in Europe, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored 17 goals, and Lewandowski, who scored 16 goals.

Bruno, who sent out 13 assists, also won the assists title.

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As the dust of the group stage has settled, all nine group winners have finally been decided.

France, Portugal, Germany, Serbia, Poland, England, Spain, Belgium, and Iceland ranked first in the nine groups and obtained direct tickets to next year's World Cup in Russia.

Iceland, which stunned the world at last summer's European Cup, has once again become the dark horse in this European qualifier. In Group I with strong teams such as Croatia, Ukraine and Turkey, Iceland topped the list with 7 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses.

Among the nine group second places, Slovakia in Group F only scored 9 points, making it the worst group second place and unable to continue participating in the play-offs to compete for the remaining four tickets.

Eight teams, namely Sweden, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Denmark, Italy, Greece and Croatia, will fight against each other to compete for the remaining four tickets in the European region.

After the draw, Croatia faced Greece, Northern Ireland faced Switzerland, Sweden faced Italy, and Denmark faced Ireland.

The four pairs of opponents will play two home and away play-offs during the international match in November. The winner will qualify for the World Cup finals, while the loser will be completely eliminated.