HAMBURG, 9 October 2005 — England and Serbia & Montenegro yesterday took a giant step toward the World Cup finals with victories in their penultimate qualifying matches.
In Group 7 Serbia beat Lithuania 2-0 to extend their lead at the top of the table from Spain to five points, though the Spaniards have a game in hand.
Goals late in the first and second halves by Mateja Kezman (42) and Zvonimir Vukic (88) gave the Serbians the all-important victory, which means they will qualify for Germany if they beat Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday.
In Group 6, England survived the sending off of captain David Beckham to beat Austria 1-0 and with it took another step toward qualifying for the 2006 World Cup.
Frank Lampard converted a penalty 25 minutes into the game in Manchester before Beckham was first booked in the 57th minute and then got his marching orders for a second bookable offense a minute later.
Beckham is now ruled out for Wednesday’s final game, a table- topper against Poland, who hold a two-point lead over England.
The winner from each group advances directly to the 2006 finals along with the two best second-place finishers. The other six number 2 teams meet for three playoff ties.
Slovakia will host Russia for a second-place showdown in Group 3 on Wednesday after both sides moved to 22 points yesterday, Russia beating Luxemborg 5-1 and Slovakia edging Estonia 1-0.
Portugal lead the way with 24 points and are expected to qualify later in their home against minnows Liechtenstein.
Ireland kept alive their hopes of qualifying from Group 4 with an unconvincing 1-0 victory in Cyprus with the only goal of the match being scored in the 6th minute through Stephen Elliott. The Irish join Switzerland and France on 16 points — one more than Israel who were playing the Faroe Islands later.
The Ukraine, who are the only European country apart from the directly qualified hosts, Germany, to have booked their place at the finals, were held to a 2-2 draw by Albania in Group 2, where Georgia and Kazakhstan played to a goalless draw.
A total 21 games were played Saturday in the European qualifying zone for the 32-team finals next year in Germany. Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Croatia and England are in with a chance of securing their World Cup tickets yesterday.
In the other group game, Wales got their first campaign win 3-2 in Northern Ireland, with Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs the hero at Windsor Park with a winning curling freekick just after the hour.
Romania won 1-0 in Finland from Adrian Mutu’s 41st-minute penalty finish their group 1 campaign with 25 points. That puts them into second place behind the Netherlands (28) and the Czech Republic (24). But the Czechs have two games left to play, later against the Dutch and on Wednesday in Finland.
In Moscow, a double from Dmitiri Kirichenko in the closing minutes, Marat Izmailov (seventh), Alexander Kerzhakov (18th) and Roman Pavluchenko (65th) gave Russia an easy win over Luxemborg, who sciored from a Claude Reiter penalty in the 52nd.
