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The group winners will qualify directly for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Among the nine group runners-up, the eight best runners-up (determined by records against the first-, third-, fourth- and fifth-placed teams only for balance between different groups) will advance to the play-offs, where they will be drawn into four home-and-away ties to determine the other four qualifiers.

Calling it right now, Northern Ireland to finish 2nd in group F behind Portugal with Northern Ireland going through the group unbeaten at the might Windsor Park!!!

1. Portugal
2. Russia
3. Israel

For those in Canada, Russia v Northern Ireland is available on Sportsnet at 10:30AM.

They are also streaming select games online. http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/2014-wor ... ualifying/

Russia with a deserved win, NI didn't do **** with the ball and if Kerzhakov weren't scared of scoring for the NT it'd have ended much more one sided. Kerzha did make a nice pass for the 1-0 and his movement helped create a lot of the chances he wasted, but I'm thinking it's time to try Dzyuba out up top. He's an even better passer, less wasteful and runs hard even if he's not on Kerzha's level yet. Kokorin's another option, but he'd be a down grade in movement and passing, even if he has the best shot of the bunch.

Luxembourg 1 - 2 Portugal

Pretty bad game

Portugal goals scored by Cristiano Ronaldo and Helder Postiga

Portugal up early over Israel.

Anyone surprised?

Israel now up 2-1 over Portugal.

Great game so far.

By the way, the best place to follow all the scores is here: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminar ... ws_caption

What a game, Portugal goes down 3-1 just to storm back in the final few minutes to tie the game 3-3 in stoppage time.

They really needed all three points, but I'm guessing they will be happy with the 1 for now.

Disappointing that we let it get that bad. Our defence got exposed on the counter a few too many times. Glad we got a result out of it though, even if it wasn't what we had in mind. The fact that we're still tied on points with Israel is disappointing though, this was our chance to get ahead, and our group wasn't a tough one to top.

Coentrao was A+ with that injury time equaliser. Postiga looked slow at times but he was able to keep up with CR for the second. All the goals (from both teams) looked fantastic.

What is going with Portugal's defense? They allowed 3 against Ecuador and 3 against Israel.

J-Mezzy wrote:What is going with Portugal's defense? They allowed 3 against Ecuador and 3 against Israel.

Not really sure. Israel's first came off a fairly tricky turn so that one wasn't so bad, but their second came off a lazy midfield play where we gave away the ball in our own half, leaving the defenders exposed. The third one surprised me, Bruno Alves is way too tall to be giving away headers like that one.

They need to get it together. Can't expect to score 3 goals in every game just stay in the game. It is not a given that they will qualify.

portugal tied with azerbaijan right now , really need the victory

bruno alves puts portugal up 1-0 , should probably see out this game now

Viva Ronaldo! He scores when he wants!
Overcame Eusebio for Portugal in goals scored at 43. Four more and he'll tie Pauleta for the top spot.
Wins us three points with three goals when we were down 2-1. Apparently Irish fans chanting "You're just a cheap Gareth Bale" is what set him off. Serves 'em right!


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2GybJ7ZWuQ[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Eykm3ucvw[/youtube]

that was just ridiculous from cr7 oh man

I know I should be glad we got the clean sheet and won even without two of our starters but I feel like we could have scored a lot more today.