Bosnia have so far been the hit of the European qualifying campaign to the 2014 World Cup, winning their matches against Liechtenstein and Lativa by a combined 12-2, with Edin Dzeko leading the scoring in the competition with 4 goals; Guillaume Gillet with a cracker of a kick for Belgium; Yevhen Konoplyanka stunned Wembley with an opening goal for the Ukraine.
Will begin with Dzeko’s goal, which was the less impressive of the three, mostly because of the atrocious defending from two Latvian defenders, allowing themselves to be fooled by quite a simple feint from the Manchester City striker, who now has 25 goals for the national team in 48 appearances, hoping that this time they can finish the qualifying without a need for a playoff to make the World Cup. With Greece as their only real threat in the group, this might be Bosnia’s big chance.
Next up is the 28 year old midfielder, Guillaume Gillet, who was part of an impressive Belgium display against Croatia, with the balls simply refusing to go in, and later on in the second half was about Croatia simply keeping the draw they wanted to achieve. Gillet’s goal came just before the half time whistle, reacting quickly to a ball bouncing off a corner kick, making it 1-1, staying that way till the end.
England usually make a mess of things at home at least once during every qualifying tournament, and their inability to make the most of their chances, combined with a bad decision to disallow Jermain Defoe’s first goal gave Ukraine a break in a match they probably deserved to lose. Still, the Dnipro man, Yevhen Konoplyanka, who was one of the side’s best players during the Euro tournament, made it a long and problematic day for Roy Hodgson’s lads with a fantastic long range strike that Joe Hart had no chance of stopping.