1998 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA second round
Football tournament qualification stage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1998 FIFA World Cup European qualification playoffs were a set of home-and-away playoffs to decide the final four places granted to national football teams from European nations (more precisely, UEFA members) for the 1998 FIFA World Cup.
The playoffs were decided by the standard FIFA method of aggregate score, with away goals and, if necessary, extra time with the possibility of a penalty shoot-out at the end of the second leg. The winner of each playoff was awarded a place in the 1998 FIFA World Cup.
Qualified teams
By the rules of the UEFA qualifying tournament, the first-place finishers in each of the nine groups received automatic berths, along with the best second-place team that had earned the most points. As some groups had six teams and others had five, the matches vs the fifth and sixth place teams were discarded for the purposes of the ranking, despite the fact that discarding results vs the sixth placed team would have sufficed.
The eight remaining second-place teams were competed in this round: An open draw was held on 13 October 1997 at FIFA headquarters in Zürich.
| Pos | Grp | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 |  Scotland |
6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 2 | +6 | 13 | Qualification to 1998 FIFA World Cup |
| 2 | 2 |  Italy |
6 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 0 | +5 | 12 | Advance to second round (play-offs) |
| 3 | 7 |  Belgium |
6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 11 | 0 | 12 | |
| 4 | 5 |  Russia |
6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 5 | +7 | 11 | |
| 5 | 1 |  Croatia |
6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 8 | +3 | 11 | |
| 6 | 6 |  FR Yugoslavia |
6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 5 | +2 | 11 | |
| 7 | 8 |  Republic of Ireland |
6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 6 | +2 | 8 | |
| 8 | 9 |  Ukraine |
6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 8 | |
| 9 | 3 |  Hungary |
6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 7 | −3 | 6 |
Matches
| Ukraine | 1–1 | Croatia |
|---|---|---|
Shevchenko  5' |
Report | Bokšić 27' |
Croatia won 3–1 on aggregate.
Italy won 2–1 on aggregate.
Yugoslavia won 12–1 on aggregate.
| Republic of Ireland | 1–1 | Belgium |
|---|---|---|
| Irwin 7' |
Report | Nilis 29' |
Belgium won 3–2 on aggregate.
Goalscorers
There were 25 goals scored in 8 matches, for an average of 3.12 goals per match.
7 goals
2 goals
1 goal
1 own goal
Fabio Cannavaro (against Russia)