Great pressure on Spain in the World Cup qualifiers.. Portugal is waiting for Ronaldo's goals
Spain, the runners-up of the last edition of the European Nations League, must return with victory from Greece tomorrow in order to hope to snatch the ticket directly to the World Cup Qatar 2022 from the second group, which is led by Sweden by two points, knowing that the latter defeats submerged Georgia in the penultimate round of the continental qualifiers.
So far, two teams have succeeded in reaching the World Cup finals scheduled from November 21 to December 18, 2022: Germany and Denmark.
If the Spanish teams (13 points) and the leaders Sweden (15 points) succeed in winning, the decisive confrontation between them will be in Seville in the final round of qualifiers on November 14, where Spain must also win to resolve the direct card in its favour.
Any result other than Spain's victory means Sweden will qualify if it beats Georgia, and "La Roja" is satisfied with the play-off.
"La Roja" coach Luis Enrique relies on a mixture of experience represented by Barcelona defender Gerard Pique and his colleague in the Catalan team, midfielder Sergio Busquets, in addition to some promising youngsters such as the Barcelona trio Badri, Gavi and Ansu Fati.
However, the latter will miss the last two matches after suffering an injury in the Barcelona match at the end of the week, which is expected to keep him out of action for a while.
Portugal is counting on Ronaldo
On the other hand, the Portuguese team, led by Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo, the best scorer at the international level, wants to return at least a point from Dublin when it faces the Republic of Ireland.
Ronaldo scored a hat-trick in his last international appearance last month, when his country beat Luxembourg with a clean six, during which he raised his absolute record of international goals to 115 in his 182 international match, knowing that he is the European player most participating in the national teams.
The Portuguese team is one point behind its Serbian counterpart, who is absent from the group, who has one match left to play against Portugal in the last round in Lisbon.
In the event that Portugal is destined to win or draw against Ireland, it will need to draw only in the upcoming match at home against Serbia to ensure direct qualification due to the goal difference in favor of Seleção (+12 vs. +8).
Second-placed Croatia (17 points) also in Group H must return with the three points of the match when they visit lowly Malta, while leaders Russia (19) play weak Cyprus.
It is likely that matters will be resolved in this group when Croatia hosts its Russian counterpart in the last round.
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