WORLD CUP SOCCER : England and Spain Get Berths With Ties
England and Spain tied their matches Wednesday but still became the seventh and eighth nations to earns berths in the 24-team World Cup soccer finals next summer in Italy.
Playing away from home, neither England nor Spain was able to win. England was not even able to score in a tie against Poland at Katowice. Spain and Hungary played to a 2-2 tie at Budapest. But all England and Spain needed to qualify for the finals was the one point that is awarded for ties.
Spain’s tie also virtually assured the first World Cup berth for Ireland, which won Wednesday in Dublin against Northern Ireland, 3-0. To advance instead of Ireland, Hungary would have to win at Spain next month by six goals and Ireland would have to lose at winless Malta.
In other games Wednesday, Belgium, Romania and Scotland failed to advance to the finals. But all still have an excellent chance of qualifying.
Aiming for its third consecutive appearance in the finals, Belgium tied, 2-2, at Switzerland. Romania lost, 3-0, at Denmark. Denmark leads its region by one point but must play Nov. 15 at Romania. Scotland lost, 3-0, at France, even though the French were reduced to 10 men for most of the second half. Two of the French goals came after defender Eric Di Meco was ejected.
Also, the Netherlands moved closer to a spot in the finals with a 2-1 victory at Wales; Bulgaria won, 4-0, over Greece in a torrential rain at Varna, Bulgaria; Portugal overpowered Luxembourg, 3-0, in a match played at Saarbruecken, West Germany; and Yugoslavia, which already has clinched a berth in the finals, beat Norway, 1-0, at Sarajevo on a penalty kick by Faruk Hadzibegic.
England, which survived a last-minute Polish shot that ricocheted off the crossbar, and its 40-year-old goalkeeper, Peter Shilton, did not give up a goal during six qualifying matches. England scored 10 times as it won three games and tied three.
In its victory, Ireland got goals from Ronnie Whelan, Tony Cascarino and Ray Houghton against goalkeeper George Dunlop, an aircraft mechanic chosen to start at the last minute for Northern Ireland.
“We’re getting closer and closer (to the finals), and now we just want that little whisper in the ear to say we’re there,” Ireland Coach Jack Charlton said. “Then we’ll all be delighted. It will mean a great deal to me, the players and the people of Ireland, which is what it’s all about, really.”
It was only the fourth game ever between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
In Dublin, checks on cross-border traffic began Tuesday night in preparation for the match, which started at noon Wednesday for security reasons.
More than 400 police and 1,300 match stewards were on duty in and around Lansdowne Road, where large force of riot-control officers was standing by. Police leave was canceled for the day.
Northern Ireland fans were being escorted to and from the stadium, where possible, and checks for non-ticket-holders were being made half a mile from the entrance gates.
Fewer than 1,000 tickets were officially sent to Northern Ireland fans, but more fans than that were expected to go south.
Dogs trained to detect explosives joined searches of the stadium and surrounding area.
The biggest security maneuver, however, was mounted in Poland, where 1,500 riot police and anti-terrorist squad troops were drafted to watch the 1,000 or so visiting English fans, after the violent scenes which marred England’s visit to Stockholm last month.
Police chief Major Wyszkowski warned: “If necessary we will use force. If the English fans want to spoil it for their team, our cells are ready for them.’
Poland’s leading authority on football hooliganism, Major Tadeusz Gorecki, said Silesia Stadium in the Katowice suburb of Chorzow would be ringed by police and mounted troops, roads into the city would be patrolled every 100 yards, and units would be based outside the hotels where the fans were staying.
Inside the stadium, the largest policemen the country had to offer were ready to form a human wall to keep the English fans segregated from the rest of the crowd.
At Paris, where France and Scotland played, a special security fence was being built to make sure that thousands of fans arriving without tickets did not get near the stadium.
Yugoslavia was the only European nation to clinch a spot before Wednesday, taking one of the two spots in its region. Brazil, Uruguay and Costa Rica also have claimed spots, while Italy gets an automatic place because it is hosting the finals and Argentina receives a spot as defending champion.
