Scotland advances with a stoppage-time victory, and the probability of the four British teams participating in the World Cup increases again

Written by Han Bing On November 18, all the European group matches of the World Cup qualifiers were over. Switzerland, Spain, Austria, and Belgium, which ranked first in the group before the final round, all successfully qualified. However, Denmark, which could qualify with an away draw, was defeated by Scotland in stoppage time with two consecutive goals. Scotland became the only team in the European group stage of this World Cup to reverse its ranking in the last round and gain direct qualification. Like Norway and Austria, they both returned to the World Cup finals after 28 years.

Scotland has been lagging behind Denmark in Group C starting from the second round of the group stage. In the penultimate round, after Scotland lost 2-3 away to the Greek team, they almost lost hope of passing through. The Danish team only needs to defeat the weakest Belarus at home to lead by 3 points and effectively qualify. However, Denmark was held to a 2-2 draw by Belarus, giving Scotland a chance to stage a home counterattack in the final round.

In the first 3 minutes of this campaign, McTominay received a pass from Docker and scored with a wonderful overhead kick, igniting the enthusiasm of nearly 50,000 fans at Scotland's home stadium. However, captain Robertson sent a penalty kick in the 57th minute, and Hoylen equalized the score. In the 61st minute, Christensen accumulated two yellow cards and was sent off. The Danish team could only play with 10 players in the remaining 40 minutes of the game.

The last 20 minutes of the game were ups and downs. In the 78th minute, Shankland, who came on as a substitute, gave Scotland the lead again. However, in the 81st minute, Dolgu equalized the score again. The Danish team persisted until the end of the game to qualify. But the tenacity of the Scots created a miracle. Tierney, the left-back who came on as a substitute in 3 minutes of stoppage time, scored from the top of the penalty area to help the home team take the lead for the third time. Five minutes later, the Scotland team used the Danish team to attack from all fronts. McLean, who also came on as a substitute, lobbed a shot from the center circle to seal the 4-2 victory, helping Scotland qualify for the World Cup again after 28 years.

It is worth mentioning that England and Scotland have qualified directly; Wales also slaughtered North Macedonia 7-1 in the Group J second place battle that ended early this morning, and advanced to the play-offs as the second place in Group J; in addition, although Northern Ireland ranked third in Group A in the World Qualifiers, it has already obtained a play-off seat through the UEFA Nations League. These four football association teams belonging to the United Kingdom are expected to be qualified for the first time in 68 years after the 1958 World Cup.

After all the European group matches of the World Cup preliminaries, the Spanish team tied with Türkiye 2-2 in the last round, failing to achieve the perfect ending of a complete victory + zero shutout. However, the Spanish team's unbeaten record in official matches has been extended to 31 games, tying Italy (2018 to 2021) and only 2 games shy of the world record held by Brazil (33 games from 1993 to 1998). At the same time, the Spanish team is unbeaten in 54 home games in the World Cup preliminaries, and its unbeaten record in the World Cup preliminaries at home continues to increase. The Spanish team has participated in the World Cup for 13 consecutive times, tied with Brazil, Germany, and Argentina.

In this European group stage, only the England team has a perfect record of victory and zero shutout to qualify. The Norwegian team, which scored 37 goals in 8 games, also won all the qualifying games and is the team with the most goals. Haaland tied with Lewandowski (2018) with 16 goals and tied for the record for most goals in the European qualifiers of a single World Cup. Slovakia and Kosovo both scored only 6 goals in 6 games, but they were able to enter the play-offs and are still expected to qualify for the World Cup.

Compared with the 2024 European Cup a year ago, Georgia, Hungary, Serbia, and Slovenia, which were shortlisted for the finals, all missed this World Cup. Only 11 of the 24 teams have entered the 2026 World Cup finals, namely England, France, Croatia, Portugal, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Scotland.

At the same time, all 16 teams that will participate in the European qualifiers in March next year have been formed. The 16 teams are divided into 4 groups. Each group will conduct two rounds of single-elimination matches to determine a qualifying spot. The home team of each game will be determined by drawing lots. At 20:00 on November 20, the play-off draw ceremony will be held at the UEFA headquarters in Zurich. Italy, Denmark, Turkey and Ukraine are in the first pot, while Sweden, Romania, North Macedonia and Northern Ireland, the four teams that have entered the play-offs through the UEFA Nations League, are in the fourth pot. The most eye-catching play-offs are naturally the Italian team, which has missed two consecutive World Cups. The Azzurri led by Gennaro Gattuso strives to avoid the shameful record of missing three consecutive World Cups.