Sweden 2 - Portugal 3: All hail Ronaldo the magnificent
CRISTIANO RONALDO will go to the ball after all.
Ronaldo salutes the first Portuguese goal [GETTY]Ronaldo shattered their hopes in the space of three minutes
The Portugal superstar scored a magnificent 30-minute hat-trick as his side squeezed into World Cup finals last night.
Skipper Ronaldo looked a man on a mission as he broke Swedish hearts and took the bragging rights from their talisman Zlatan Ibrahimovic on a thrill-a-minute night in Stockholm.
Ronaldo settled Portuguese nerves as they defended a one-goal advantage from the first leg of the play-off.
He has scored numerous trebles in his career – most notebaly for Real Madrid – but probably none as important as this.
Ibrahimovic, to his credit, refused to lie down and replied with two goals himself but seemed to accept the inevitable long before the end.
The tie was still finely balanced at half-time but Ronaldo drew first blood when he finished off a lightning counter-attack in the 55th minute, racing through the middle and hammering a left-footed drive beyond It was no less than the Portuguese deserved as they had created the better chances.
But Ibrahimovic gave Sweden hope when he first headed home and corner and then fired in a free kick from just outside the box that bamboozled keeper Rui Patricio.
The Swedes still needed to score again to avoid going out on away goals but Ronaldo shattered their hopes in the space of three minutes.
He broke away again to crash the ball past Isaksson, then put matters beyond doubt by slamming home another fierce effort off the underside of the bar. Game over and Portugal could look forward to Brazil.
France will join them after coming to the party when it finally mattered as they set a World Cup play-off record.
No team hand overcome a two-goal first-leg deficit to go through but Liverpool’s Mamadou Sakho scored twice as they beat Ukraine 3-0 to go through 3-2 on aggregate.
Sakho, a £17 million buy from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer, started the ball rolling in the 22nd by cashing in when Andriy Paytov spilled a shot from Franck Ribery.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic converts a free kick to give Portugal their World Cup finals place [GETTY]
Karim Benzema had a second wrongly chalked off for offside – but the Real Madrid star got the rub of the green a few minutes later when he latched on to Yohan Cabaye’s scuffed shot to score. This time he looked yards offside but the linesman’s flag stayed down.
Yevhen Khacheridi made things harder for Ukraine when he was sent off for a second bookable for a foul on the outstanding Ribery.
And Sakho sent France wild when he poked home the third, although the ball seemed to go in off Ukraine defender Oleg Gusev.
Mario Mandzukic scored – and was sent off for a studs-up challenge – as Croatia ended Iceland’s hopes of becoming the smallest nation to reach the finals.Darijo Srna was also on the scoresheet as the Croatians won 2-0 for a 2-0 aggregate victory.
Greece completed the European contingent for the finals when they drew 1-1 in Romania to go through 4-2 on aggregate.
Konstatinos Mitroglu gave the Greeks the lead and they saw out the game despite an own-goal from Vasilios Torosidis.
Ghana became the fourth African nation to qualify after Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Nigeria despite a 2-1 defeat by Egypt in Cairo.
The damage had been done by their 6-1 romp in the first leg and goals from Amr Zaki and Mohamed Gedo were only consolations before Kevin-Prince Boateng gave the visitors a 7-3 aggregate win.
Algeria filled the last African spot thanks to Madjid Bougherra’s scrappy goal gave them a 1-0 win over Burkina Faso. The tie finished 3-3 on aggregate, Algeria going through on away goals.
Daily Mail.
