HELSINKI, Miroslav’s Klose spared Germany’s blushes with a hat trick to scrape a draw against Finland in their World Cup Group Four qualifier.
Klose had to pull Germany back into the game three times, scoring his final equalizer seven minutes from time. Jonatan Johansson got the first Finland goal after the German defense failed to clear a forward pass and he slotted the ball easily past Robert Enke. Five minutes later Klose replied after Sami Hyypia failed to control a pass.
Finland regained the lead in the 43rd minute when Mika Vayrynen converted Daniel Sjolund’s pass but two minutes later Klose latched on to the ball after a mistake by goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen. Sjolund’s header with little over half an hour to go gave Finland the lead for the third time but Klose earned Germany a point, bundling the ball home after a goalmouth scramble.
In Hamburg, Russia got their World Cup qualifying campaign off to a winning start yesterday with a 2-1 victory over Wales in Moscow, while Ukraine scored their second victory in as many matches with a 3-1 win in Kazakhstan. Romania, who were humbled 3-0 by Lithuania in their opening game on the weekend, struggled again but managed to overcome minnows Faroe Islands 1-0 in a Group 7 game. The visitors were down to 10 men after Sorin Ghionea was sent off in the 58th minute, but Razvan Cocis scored the winner for Romania just a minute later. In a Group 6 game in Andorra, Barcelona’s Aliaksandr Hleb was one of the goal scorers for Belarus, who beat Andorra 3-1. Dmitri Verkhovtsov and Vitali Rodionov scored the other goals for the visitors, while Marc Pujol managed to momentarily equalize for Andorra.
The other group game Serhiy Nazarenko gave the Ukrainians the lead in the 45th minute in Almatay.
The attacking midfielder from Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk scored his second 10 minutes from the end to give his side a convincing 3-1 victory after Andriy Shevchenko gave the visitors a two-goal cushion in the 54th minute.
Sergey Ostapenko had given the home crowd a glimmer of hope in the 68th minute when he reduced the score to 2-1, but Nazarenko’s second killed off any hopes they had of snatching an unlikely draw.
In Moscow, a late goal from Pavel Pogrebnyak gave Russia a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Wales in a Group 4 game. Russia were in control for most of the first half, but the only reward was a 22nd-minute penalty converted by Roman Pavlyuchenko.
In another Group 4 game Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein scored their first points of the qualifiers after a goalless draw in Baku. Ireland took their point tally in Group 8 to four after holding Montenegro to a goalless draw in Podgorica.
In Belgrade, Montenegro held Ireland to a 0-0 draw in their World Cup Group Eight qualifier in Podgorica. Montenegro nearly stole the three points in the 78th minute when Stevan Jovetic found some space in the center but he was denied when keeper Shay Given managed to push the deflected ball away.
