Portugal vs North Macedonia LIVE: World Cup play-off final result, score and reaction
Relive all the action from Porto
Bruno Fernandes scored twice as Portugal sealed their place in their sixth consecutive World Cup finals with a 2-0 win over North Macedonia in Porto.
Fernandes ended the visitors’ resistance with a 32nd-minute opener after being played in by a neat bit of skill by Cristiano Ronaldo.
From that moment on there was little danger of the North Macedonians repeating the heroics that saw them dump Italy out of the tournament with a dramatic late winner in Palermo last week.
Fernandes sealed his side’s passage to Qatar in the 65th minute when he finished off a lightning counter-attack by stroking the ball past keeper Stole Dimitrievski. Relive all the action live below:
Farewell!
That just about does us for this evening’s live coverage. We now know 12 of the 13 Uefa representatives who will be at the 2022 Fifa World Cup ahead of Friday’s group stage draw, with Poland and Portugal punching their tickets with 2-0 home wins.
We’ll have plenty of reaction to all of tonight’s football over the next couple of days as we build up to proceedings in Doha where the competing nations will find out what awaits them come the first men’s World Cup held in November and December.
But, for now, this is goodbye - thank you for joining us, and do stay safe and well!
Pepe, excellent this evening, on earning the chance to appear at a fourth World Cup
“I want to thank all the Portuguese people. It was an exciting night, the atmosphere was fantastic.
“We deserved it. It would have been an injustice not to go to the World Cup.
“Dreaming is within everyone’s reach. We have a lot of quality but we have to work hard and be a humble and warrior team.”
Fernando Santos on Portugal’s win and qualification for the 2022 Fifa World Cup
“The attitude of the players was fantastic, with great collective spirit. It was a deserved victory.
“The only dream I have is to win a third competition [to go with Euro 2016 and the Nations League in 2019]. I dream of the World Cup.”
Looking ahead to Friday’s draw
I’m virtually certain that Portugal will be in Pot One for the World Cup group stage draw on Friday, joining Qatar, Belgium, Brazil, France, Argentina, Spain and England.
That means that Denmark, potential seeding beneficiaries of a surprise Portuguese exit, will be in Pot Two.
FULL TIME! POLAND 2-0 SWEDEN
POLAND QUALIFY FOR THE 2022 FIFA WORLD CUP IN QATAR
Poland 2-0 Sweden, 90 + 2 minutes
This is a real blow for Sweden. They should really have qualified from their group, but a loss to Georgia in the penultimate round of fixtures was costly, and for all their attacking resources they’ve mustered only one goal across 210 minutes of play-off football.
Two more minutes of additional time and that’ll be that.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments