LONDON: Switzerland and Croatia became the latest nations to qualify for the World Cup on Sunday after earning goalless draws in the second legs of their World Cup playoffs.

Switzerland scraped to their fourth finals in a row as their left-back Ricardo Rodriguez denied Northern Ireland hope in both games of their playoff at either end of the field.

In each leg of Switzerland’s 1-0 aggregate win, the key incident involved one of Northern Ireland’s Evans brothers.

Switzerland needed only a draw to advance to Russia, and a tense 0-0 result in rain-soaked Basel was preserved by Rodriguez’s goal-line clearance in stoppage time from Jonny Evans’ header.

“In the right moment he was in the right place,” Switzerland coach Vladimir Petkovic said of the AC Milan defender.

It meant Switzerland’s disputed penalty for handball in the first-leg victory in Belfast made all the difference. Rodriguez scored that spot kick on Thursday, when Corey Evans was whistled harshly for an incident that few agreed with.

Northern Ireland coach Michael O’Neill said his team’s exit after a spirited second-half Sunday was “a devastating moment”.

“It was decided by a really poor decision and a penalty that should never have been,” O’Neill said, 25 minutes after the final whistle. “We should still be playing extra time now.

“It was a privilege to be their coach and manager tonight,” said O’Neill, who shared tearful embraces with players at the final whistle.

Switzerland wasted numerous first-half chances as the Northern Irish stayed in the tie.

“It was very hard, there was a lot of pressure,” Switzerland goalkeeper Yann Sommer told television channel RTS. “Everyone said it was almost done, but against teams like that it’s a fight. I’m very excited we’ve achieved our goal. It’s unfortunate that we were not more efficient because it would have been easier.”

In Athens, Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic heaped praise on his players after they saw off Greece with the minimum of fuss in their tie.

The impressive Croatians easily held off the Greek hosts as they pressed for an upset at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium in Sunday’s second leg to complete a 4-1 aggregate victory making it the fifth time they have qualified for the global showpiece since gaining independence in 1991.

“Congratulations to my players, it was a great game tonight, full of tension, and weve achieved what we had set out to do and are going to Russia, said a delighted Dalic, who only took over from the sacked Ante Cacic last month.

“We played a truly awesome game in Zagreb in the first leg, tonight here it was much harder. But it was never important for me who would be our opponents in this playoff, because I was convinced that we would win whoever we played against.”

Greece coach Michael Skibbe said the first leg had done the damage. Skibbe dropped half of his players from the disastrous first-leg showing in Zagreb, and the return of Roma defender Kostas Manolas kept Croatia striker Nikola Kalinic in check.

“We had 12 good games [at the qualifiers] ... on this level of football, it is not allowed to make mistakes like these,” said German Skibbe. “Unfortunately we had a very bad performance in Zagreb three days ago and we paid for it.

“Tonight we were excellent and Croatia were not good. The previous match happened the other way around.”

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2017