Mehmedi and Switzerland through to World Cup finals

Croatia, with Tin Jedvaj crossing his fingers for his team-mates in Leverkusen, only needed a goalless draw in the second leg in Piraeus following their 4-1 victory in Thursday’s meeting in Zagreb. In contrast to the first match, Michael Skibbe started Panos Retsos and he played the full 90 minutes at left back. Greece worked hard but were ineffective up front. And when substitute Demitris Pelkas put the ball into the back of the net with ten minutes to play the goal was ruled out by the referee for an offside in the build-up.

 There were also no goals in the encounter between Switzerland and Northern Ireland in the cauldron of St. Jakob Park in Basel. That did not affect the huge joy of Admir Mehmedi, brought off the bench on the hour mark, as Switzerland only needed to keep a clean sheet to qualify for the World Cup following the 1-0 win in the first leg in Northern Ireland. However, the hosts were kept on their toes to the final minute as they coped with a courageous fight from the Northern Irish and a difficult surface to play on. Ricardo Rodriguez was again the man of the match, after scoring the only goal of the game in the first leg, when he saved a shot off the line with goalkeeper Yann Sommer already beaten.

Group draw at the Kremlin on 1 December

 Admir Mehmedi, Tin Jedvaj, Lucas Alario as a possible for the Argentina squad plus the Germany players at the Werkself will have their eyes on Moscow on 1 December: The draw for the groups at the 2018 World Cup will be held at the Kremlin.