Ronaldo Beat Ibahimovic In The World Cup Race

The much anticipated battle between football superstars, Cristian Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in their countries' - (Portugal and Sweden) World Cup play-offs, lived up to it's media billings. Ronaldo scored a hattrick on Tueday night, in their 3 - 2 win to help Portugal qualify on an aggregate of
4 - 2. Portugal also won the first leg in Lisbon with 1 - 0.

The match was very entertaining full of excitements, with the two big stars scoring all the goals in the two leg play-offs. Ronaldo scored the only goal in the first leg on Friday and a hattrick in the Friends Arena in Sweden. Zlatan scored the two goals for Sweden.

It was a thriller of a match, but unfortunately only one of the superstars and his team, will be going to the 2014 soccer mundial in Brazil and Ronaldo made sure that it was going to be him and Portugal.

In the other World Cup play-offs, France came back from their 2 - 0 defeat
against Ukraine to beat them 3 - 0 in Paris and qualify on aggregate of 3 - 2.
Croatia defeated Iceland 2 - 0 in Zagreb and qualified on an aggregate of 2 - 0, as the first leg in Iceland ended on a 0 - 0 draw.

Greece also qualified after a 1 - 1 draw in Romania. They go through on the aggregate of 4 - 2, they won the first leg in Athens with a 3 - 1 scoreline.

In the remaining two play-offs in Africa, Ghana lost 2 - 1 in the second leg in Cairo, but qualified on a 7 - 3 aggregate. They defeated Egypt 6 - 1 in the first leg in Kumasi, Ghana.

Read also: africanfootie.blogspot.com

Algeria defeated Burkina Faso 1 - 0 in the second leg play-off. They lost the first leg in Ouagadigou 3 - 2. The aggregate score was 3 - 3 but Algeria qualified on away goal rule.

All the 32 countries to participate in Brazil 2014 World Cup, are now known except for one that will be determined on Wednesday, in the inter -continental play-off between Uruguay and Jordan. Uruguay has a massive advantage going into the second leg, because they won the first leg 5 - 0.

I believe Uruguay will qualify, baring any miracle on the side of Jordan.
Mexico has already booked their place in the first inter-continental play-offs against New Zealand with a 4 - 2 win in Wellington. They went through on the aggregate of 9 - 3. Mexico won the first leg in Mexico City with 5 - 1.

The Countries that have qualified including the host - Brazil are :
Africa: Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Ghana and Algeria. The same five nations that qualified in 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Asia: Australia, Iran, Japan and South Korea.

Europe: Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Croatia, Bosnia, Greece, France,
England, Italy, Russia, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland.
North/Central America &Caribbean: Costa Rica, Honduras and USA.
South America: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Ecuador.