1998 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA second round

The 1998 FIFA World Cup European qualification playoffs were a set of home-and-away playoffs to decide the final four places granted to national football teams from European nations (more precisely, UEFA members) for the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

The playoffs were decided by the standard FIFA method of aggregate score, with away goals and, if necessary, extra time with the possibility of a penalty shootout at the end of the second leg. The winner of each playoff was awarded a place in the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

Qualified teams

By the rules of the UEFA qualifying tournament, the first-place finishers in each of the nine groups received automatic berths, along with the best second-place team that had earned the most points. As some groups had six teams and others had five, the matches vs the fifth and sixth place teams were discarded for the purposes of the ranking, despite the fact that discarding results vs the sixth placed team would’ve been sufficient enough.

The eight remaining second-place teams were competed in this round: An open draw was held on 13 October 1997 at FIFA headquarters in Zürich.

Pos	Grp	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	4	Scotland	6	4	1	1	8	2	+6	13	Qualification to 1998 FIFA World Cup
2	2	Italy	6	3	3	0	5	0	+5	12	Advance to second round (play-offs)
3	7	Belgium	6	4	0	2	11	11	0	12
4	5	Russia	6	3	2	1	12	5	+7	11
5	1	Croatia	6	3	2	1	11	8	+3	11
6	6	FR Yugoslavia	6	3	2	1	7	5	+2	11
7	8	Republic of Ireland	6	2	2	2	8	6	+2	8
8	9	Ukraine	6	2	2	2	5	5	0	8
9	3	Hungary	6	1	3	2	4	7	−3	6

Source: ^[1]

Matches

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Croatia	3–1	Ukraine	2–0	1–1
Russia	1–2	Italy	1–1	0–1
Republic of Ireland	2–3	Belgium	1–1	1–2
Hungary	1–12	FR Yugoslavia	1–7	0–5

29 October 1997

18:00 UTC+1

Croatia	2–0	Ukraine
Bilić 11' Vlaović 49'	Report

Maksimir Stadium, Zagreb

Attendance: 28,000

Referee: Alain Sars (France)

15 November 1997

19:00 UTC+2

Ukraine	1–1	Croatia
Shevchenko 5'	Report	Bokšić 27'

Olimpiysky, Kyiv

Attendance: 77,500

Referee: Rune Pedersen (Norway)

Croatia won 3–1 on aggregate.

---

29 October 1997

20:30 UTC+3

Russia	1–1	Italy
Cannavaro 52' (o.g.)	Report	Vieri 49'

Dynamo Stadium, Moscow

Attendance: 15,000

Referee: Peter Mikkelsen (Denmark)

15 November 1997

20:45 UTC+1

Italy	1–0	Russia
Casiraghi 53'	Report

Stadio San Paolo, Naples

Attendance: 69,207

Referee: Serge Muhmenthaler (Switzerland)

Italy won 2–1 on aggregate.

---

29 October 1997

20:00 UTC+1

Hungary	1–7	FR Yugoslavia
Illés 88'	Report	Brnović 2' Đukić 6' Savićević 10' Mijatović 26', 41', 51' Milošević 63'

Stadion Albert Flórián, Budapest

Attendance: 13,175

Referee: Vítor Melo Pereira (Portugal)

15 November 1997

17:00 UTC+1

FR Yugoslavia	5–0	Hungary
Milošević 18' Mijatović 44', 45' (pen.), 71', 88'	Report

Stadion Crvena Zvezda, Belgrade

Attendance: 48,498

Referee: Metin Tokat (Turkey)

Yugoslavia won 12–1 on aggregate.

---

29 October 1997

19:30 UTC±0

Republic of Ireland	1–1	Belgium
Irwin 7'	Report	Nilis 29'

Lansdowne Road, Dublin

Attendance: 32,305

Referee: László Vagner (Hungary)

15 November 1997

20:00 UTC+1

Belgium	2–1	Republic of Ireland
Oliveira 25' Nilis 70'	Report	Houghton 58'

King Baudouin Stadium, Brussels

Attendance: 35,320

Referee: Günter Benkö (Austria)

Belgium won 3–2 on aggregate.

Goalscorers

There were 25 goals scored in 8 matches, for an average of 3.12 goals per match.

7 goals

• Predrag Mijatović

2 goals

• Luc Nilis
• Savo Milošević

1 goal

• Luís Oliveira
• Slaven Bilić
• Alen Bokšić
• Goran Vlaović
• Béla Illés
• Ray Houghton
• Denis Irwin
• Pierluigi Casiraghi
• Christian Vieri
• Andriy Shevchenko
• Branko Brnović
• Miroslav Đukić
• Dejan Savićević

1 own goal

• Fabio Cannavaro (against Russia)