SOCCER: World Cup Qualifiers: UEFA Qualifying Zone

After an eventful weekend of World Cup Qualifiers throughout the world, European matches will again commence tonight for match day three.

The weekend saw its upsets, no doubt the biggest at Wembley, where a fired up England missed out on ending the Wembley cap off with a win when they lost at home to Germany 1-0. Other big matches in Europe included Holland’s defeat of Cyprus, Portugal drew to The Republic of Ireland, Greece defeated Finland and Czech Republic defeated Iceland.

The pick of the games, however, was the 6-0 romp of Venezuela by Brazil, where 34-year-old Romario bagged four goals in the CONMEBOL qualifying zone.

Tonight will be a major match for England in Europe’s Group 9 when they take on Finland at Helsinki. Suffering not only a loss on the park on Saturday, but also a loss of Manager when Kevin Keegan resigned from his post claiming the fans who voted him in were the ones taking him out.

England will be looking for some points as to not drop too far from Germany and Greece who are on six and three points respectively.

The other Group 9 match sees Albania host the gallant Greeks, who although boast a heap of talent, have not produced the results when required of late. The Greeks will be looking for a win when they travel to Tirana with players such as Liberopoulos, Georgatos, Choutos and Dabizas.

In Group 1, Russia will play Luxembourg at home in Moscow, Slovenia will play the Swiss at home in Ljubljana and the Yugoslavia and Faroe Island match has been postponed. Group 2 features the thriller between Holland and Portugal at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam, meanwhile the Republic of Ireland and Estonia will battle it out in Dublin.

A big match for World Cup '98 Quarter-Finalists Denmark will see a tough match in Copenhagen versus World Cup '94 Semi-Finalists Bulgaria in UEFA’s Group 3.

In the same group Iceland will host Northern Ireland at Reykjavik while at the same time lowly Malta will be meeting the Czech Republic team, who take no prisoners. That match will take place at Valetta.

Group 4 does not boast any matches worth staying up for, but you never know as there might be a few surprises. Turkey will travel to Azerbaijan, Moldova host FYR of Macedonia and Slovakia will play at home in Bratislava against Sweden.

The Group 5 draw will pit Belarus and Armenia at Minsk, Norway and Ukraine at Oslo and Poland and Wales at Warsaw.

Moving on to Group 6, where the solitary match between Croatia and Scotland is sure to get on fire, despite superstar Davor Suker expected to be left out due to injury. Group 7 will feature two matches when Austria hosts Spain at Vienna in a match, which promises plenty of action. Israel will play Bosnia at home at Tel-Aviv amidst the interruption of signs of war. Group 8 also features two matches. Italy, the three time World Cup winner will play Georgia at Ancuna, as Lithuania will be hoping to play at their best against a competitive Hungarian team when they play at home at Kaunas.

Although fairly early in the qualifying period, all the teams competing must thinking positively and trying to break ahead of the others. Leaving it to the last minute can only spell disaster.