The city of Durban, situated on South Africa’s east coast, was the venue for the qualifying draw of football’s premier event, the FIFA World Cup. South Africa will host this tournament in 2010.
Here are the European groups
Group 1 : Albania, Denmark, Hungary, Malta, Sweden, Portugal
To track the last time that England failed to qualify for a major international event, we need to turn the clock a decade and a half back to USA ’94. England finished third behind Norway and Netherlands in their group, and as a result never made the trip across the Atlantic. This time around, Steve McLaren’s boys went into the last round of games needing just a single point to go through. That point would not have been necessary had Andorra managed to hold Russia or even beat them. Andorra were the weakest team in the group, and nothing much could be expected from them. And therefore England had all to play for against Croatia, and the game was at the Mecca of English football- Wembley.
Here are the results from European qualifying on Saturday, 17th November.
The teams which have confirmed their place in next summer’s European Championships are
Group B – Italy and France.
Group D– Germany and Czech Republic.
Group E– Croatia through. Battle between England and Russia for the other spot.