{"id":1052,"date":"2012-10-17T15:25:16","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T15:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2012-10-17T15:25:16","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T15:25:16","slug":"european-world-cup-qualifying-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/european-world-cup-qualifying-review-1052\/","title":{"rendered":"European World Cup qualifying review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1053\" src=\"http:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Rasmus-Elm-Goal-300x185.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" srcset=\"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Rasmus-Elm-Goal-300x185.jpg 300w, https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Rasmus-Elm-Goal.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Last night was a busy one in European qualifying for the World Cup. In the most incredible game of the night Sweden came back from four goals behind in Berlin to draw 4-4 with Germany.<\/p>\n<p>Germany looked like they were in complete control after Miroslav Klose struck twice and Per Mertesacker and Mesut Ozil both found the target.<\/p>\n<p>Zlatan Ibrahimovic got goal back for the Swedes before efforts from Mikael Lustig and Johan Elmander made it 4-3. It got even more dramatic deep in injury-time, as midfielder Rasmus Elm struck an equaliser.<\/p>\n<p>France also rescued an injury-time 1-1 draw in Spain through a goal from Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud. The home side had taken the lead midway through the first half through an effort from Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos.<\/p>\n<p>Italy claimed a valuable 3-1 victory over Denmark at the Giuseppe Meazza. Italy took a two goal lead through goals from Riccardo Montolivo and Daniele De Rossi. Denmark got a goal back in first half injury-time through midfielder William Kvist.<\/p>\n<p>Early in the second half the Azzurri were down to ten men as striker Pablo Osvaldo was dismissed for violent conduct. The sending-off didn\u2019t affect the home side much as Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli scored Italy\u2019s third goal in the 54<sup>th<\/sup> minute.<\/p>\n<p>Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s 100<sup>th<\/sup> appearance for Portugal was ruined as Northern Ireland secured a shock 1-1 draw in Porto. Northern Ireland winger Niall McGinn shocked the home fans by giving the visitors the lead in the 33<sup>rd<\/sup> minute.<\/p>\n<p>The home side left it late to equalise, striker Helder Postiga equalising in the 79<sup>th<\/sup> minute. The draw leaves Portugal five points behind group leaders Russia.<\/p>\n<p>In Group A Belgium defeated Scotland 2-0 in Brussels. The visitors kept a clean sheet until the 69<sup>th<\/sup> minute when Aston Villa striker Christian Benteke fired home. Two minutes later Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany doubled the home sides lead.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Will be ever see a better comeback than Sweden\u2019s in Germany?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night was a busy one in European qualifying for the World Cup. In the most incredible game of the night Sweden came back from four goals behind in Berlin to draw 4-4 with Germany. Germany looked like they were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[82,566,465,1562,1551,281,167,558,567,565,564,563,431,436,153],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1056,"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/1056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballcosmos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}