2014 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA second round

The UEFA second round was contested by the best eight runners-up from the nine first-round groups from the UEFA segment of the qualification tournament for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in football. The winners – Croatia, France, Greece, and Portugal – of each of four home and away ties joined the group winners in the World Cup in Brazil. The matches, which are often referred to as 'play-offs', were held on 15 and 19 November 2013.

The draw for the ties was held in Zürich on 21 October,^[1] with the October 2013 FIFA World Rankings used to decide which of the teams would be seeded.^[1]

Qualified teams

The eight best runners-up from the UEFA first round qualified for the play-offs; with one group having one team fewer than the others, matches against the sixth-placed team in each First Round group did not count for this ranking. As a result, eight matches played by each team counted for the purposes of ranking the runners-up (below table).

Ranking of second-placed teams

The eight best runners-up were determined by the following parameters in this order:

1. Highest number of points
2. Goal difference
3. Highest number of goals scored

Pos	Grp	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	G	Greece	8	6	1	1	9	4	+5	19	Advance to second round (play-offs)
2	I	France	8	5	2	1	15	6	+9	17
3	F	Portugal	8	4	3	1	15	8	+7	15
4	H	Ukraine	8	4	3	1	11	4	+7	15
5	C	Sweden	8	4	2	2	15	13	+2	14
6	E	Iceland	8	4	2	2	15	14	+1	14
7	D	Romania	8	4	1	3	11	12	−1	13
8	A	Croatia	8	3	2	3	9	8	+1	11
9	B	Denmark	8	2	4	2	9	11	−2	10

Source: ^[2]

Seeding and draw

The second round draw took place at the headquarters of FIFA in Zurich on 21 October at 14:00 UTC+2, and was conducted by Gordon Savic, Head of FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, with the assistance of former Switzerland international Alexander Frei.^[3][4] October 2013 FIFA World Rankings were used to decide which of the teams would be seeded (shown below in brackets).^[1][5][6]

The following teams participated in the second round:^[7][8]

Pot 1 (seeded) Team Rank  Portugal 14  Greece 15  Croatia 18  Ukraine 20

Pot 2 (unseeded) Team Rank  France 21  Sweden 25  Romania 29  Iceland 46

Matches

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Portugal	4–2	Sweden	1–0	3–2
Ukraine	2–3	France	2–0	0–3
Greece	4–2	Romania	3–1	1–1
Iceland	0–2	Croatia	0–0	0–2

15 November 2013

19:45 UTC±0

Portugal	1–0	Sweden
Ronaldo 82'	Report

Estádio da Luz, Lisbon

Attendance: 61,467

Referee: Nicola Rizzoli (Italy)

19 November 2013

20:45 UTC+1

Sweden	2–3	Portugal
Ibrahimović 68', 72'	Report	Ronaldo 50', 77', 79'

Friends Arena, Solna

Attendance: 49,766

Referee: Howard Webb (England)

Portugal won 4–2 on aggregate and qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

---

15 November 2013

21:45 UTC+2

Ukraine	2–0	France
Zozulya 62' Yarmolenko 82' (pen.)	Report

Olympic Stadium, Kyiv

Attendance: 67,732

Referee: Cüneyt Çakır (Turkey)

19 November 2013

21:00 UTC+1

France	3–0	Ukraine
Sakho 22', 72' Benzema 34'	Report

Stade de France, Saint-Denis

Attendance: 77,098

Referee: Damir Skomina (Slovenia)

France won 3–2 on aggregate and qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

---

15 November 2013

21:45 UTC+2

Greece	3–1	Romania
Mitroglou 14', 67' Salpingidis 21'	Report	Stancu 19'

Karaiskakis Stadium, Athens

Attendance: 26,200

Referee: Pedro Proença (Portugal)

19 November 2013

21:00 UTC+2

Romania	1–1	Greece
Torosidis 55' (o.g.)	Report	Mitroglou 23'

Arena Națională, Bucharest

Attendance: 49,793

Referee: Milorad Mažić (Serbia)

Greece won 4–2 on aggregate and qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

---

15 November 2013

19:00 UTC±0

Iceland	0–0	Croatia
	Report

Laugardalsvöllur, Reykjavík

Attendance: 9,767

Referee: Alberto Undiano Mallenco (Spain)

19 November 2013

20:15 UTC+1

Croatia	2–0	Iceland
Mandžukić 27' Srna 47'	Report

Stadion Maksimir, Zagreb

Attendance: 22,612

Referee: Björn Kuipers (Netherlands)

Croatia won 2–0 on aggregate and qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Discipline

Pos	Player	Country			Suspended for match(es)	Reason
DF	Birkir Már Sævarsson	Iceland	2	0	vs Croatia (15 November 2013)	Booked in two 2014 World Cup qualifying matches
MF	Ognjen Vukojević	Croatia	2	0	vs Iceland (15 November 2013)	Booked in two 2014 World Cup qualifying matches
FW	Panagiotis Kone	Greece	2	0	vs Romania (15 November 2013)	Booked in two 2014 World Cup qualifying matches
MF	Ólafur Ingi Skúlason	Iceland	0	1	vs Croatia (19 November 2013)	Sent off in a 2014 World Cup qualifying match
FW	Mario Mandžukić	Croatia	0	1	vs Brazil (12 June 2014)	Sent off in a 2014 World Cup qualifying match
MF	Costin Lazăr	Romania	2	1	vs Greece (19 November 2013)	Sent off in a 2014 World Cup qualifying match
DF	Laurent Koscielny	France	0	1	vs Ukraine (19 November 2013)	Sent off in a 2014 World Cup qualifying match
DF	Artem Fedetskyi	Ukraine	2	0	vs France (19 November 2013)	Booked in two 2014 World Cup qualifying match
DF	Oleksandr Kucher	Ukraine	2	1	vs France (19 November 2013)	Sent off in a 2014 World Cup qualifying match

Goalscorers

There were 19 goals scored in 8 matches, for an average of 2.38 goals per match.

4 goals

• Cristiano Ronaldo

3 goals

• Kostas Mitroglou

2 goals

• Mamadou Sakho
• Zlatan Ibrahimović

1 goal

• Mario Mandžukić
• Darijo Srna
• Karim Benzema
• Dimitris Salpingidis
• Bogdan Stancu
• Andriy Yarmolenko
• Roman Zozulya

1 own goal

• Vasilis Torosidis (against Romania)