Wsrtjtyk

2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)

Tournament details
Dates	18 August 2004 – 16 November 2005
Teams	51 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Matches played	282
Goals scored	778 (2.76 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Pauleta (11 goals)
← 2002 2010 →

Listed below are the dates and results for the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for UEFA teams. A total of 51 teams took part, divided in 8 groups – five groups of six teams each and three groups of seven teams each – competing for 13 places in the World Cup. Germany, the hosts, were already qualified, for a total of 14 European places in the tournament. The qualifying process started on 18 August 2004, over a month after the end of UEFA Euro 2004, and ended on 16 November 2005. Kazakhstan, which transitioned from the Asian Football Confederation to UEFA after the end of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, debuted in the European qualifiers.

The teams in each group would play against each other in a home and away basis. The team with the most points in each group would qualify to the World Cup. The runners up would be ranked. For the sake of fairness, in groups with seven teams, results against the seventh placed team were ignored. The two best ranked runners up would also qualify to the World Cup. The other six runners up were drawn into three home and away knock out matches, winners of those matches also qualifying.

The race to join hosts Germany at the 2006 FIFA World Cup featured an unlikely winner in Europe, where Ukraine became the first team to qualify, having finished above Turkey, Denmark and Greece in arguably the continent's toughest qualifying group.

France had its first successful World Cup qualifying campaign in twenty years as they had missed the 1990 and 1994 tournaments, then qualified automatically as hosts in 1998 and as defending champions in 2002.

Serbia and Montenegro and Croatia also advanced to Germany at the head of their sections, the former forcing Spain into the play offs in the process. Besides the eight group winners, two teams progressed automatically as best runners up, namely Poland and Sweden while the play offs offered a second chance to six others.

Qualification seeding (UEFA)

The draw was made on 5 December 2003 in Frankfurt, Germany. Germany qualified automatically as hosts. The other seedings were determined by points per game in the qualifiers for 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification and UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying.^[1] France qualified automatically for the 2002 FIFA World Cup as title holders, so only their record in UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying was used. Portugal qualified automatically for UEFA Euro 2004 as hosts, so only their record in World Cup 2002 was used. Kazakhstan were not ranked by this system as they did not participate in either competition.

For domestic clubs involved in international club competitions reasons, England, France, Italy and Spain were drawn into groups of 6 teams.

The national teams which eventually qualified for the final tournament are presented in bold and the national teams who took part in the play-offs are presented in italic.

First round

Summary

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5	Group 6	Group 7	Group 8
Netherlands	Ukraine	Portugal	France	Italy	England	Serbia and Montenegro	Croatia
Czech Republic	Turkey	Slovakia	Switzerland	Norway	Poland	Spain	Sweden
Romania Finland Macedonia Armenia Andorra	Denmark Greece Albania Georgia Kazakhstan	Russia Estonia Latvia Liechtenstein Luxembourg	Israel Republic of Ireland Cyprus Faroe Islands	Scotland Slovenia Belarus Moldova	Austria Northern Ireland Wales Azerbaijan	Bosnia and Herzegovina Belgium Lithuania San Marino	Bulgaria Hungary Iceland Malta

Groups

The first round is group play. A win is awarded 3 point, a draw 1 point and a loss 0. The winner of a group is the team with the most points.

Group 1

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Netherlands 12 10 2 0 27 3 +24 32  Czech Republic 12 9 0 3 35 12 +23 27  Romania 12 8 1 3 20 10 +10 25  Finland 12 5 1 6 21 19 +2 16  Macedonia 12 2 3 7 11 24 −13 9  Armenia 12 2 1 9 9 25 −16 7  Andorra 12 1 2 9 4 34 −30 5

Andorra  – 0–3 0–4 0–0 1–0 0–3 1–5 Armenia  2–1 – 0–3 0–2 1–2 0–1 1–1 Czech Republic  8–1 4–1 – 4–3 6–1 0–2 1–0 Finland  3–0 3–1 0–3 – 5–1 0–4 0–1 Macedonia  0–0 3–0 0–2 0–3 – 2–2 1–2 Netherlands  4–0 2–0 2–0 3–1 0–0 – 2–0 Romania  2–0 3–0 2–0 2–1 2–1 0–2 –

Group 2

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Ukraine 12 7 4 1 18 7 +11 25  Turkey 12 6 5 1 23 9 +14 23  Denmark 12 6 4 2 24 12 +12 22  Greece 12 6 3 3 15 9 +6 21  Albania 12 4 1 7 11 20 −9 13  Georgia 12 2 4 6 14 25 −11 10  Kazakhstan 12 0 1 11 6 29 −23 1

Albania  – 0–2 3–2 2–1 2–1 0–1 0–2 Denmark  3–1 – 6–1 1–0 3–0 1–1 1–1 Georgia  2–0 2–2 – 1–3 0–0 2–5 1–1 Greece  2–0 2–1 1–0 – 3–1 0–0 0–1 Kazakhstan  0–1 1–2 1–2 1–2 – 0–6 1–2 Turkey  2–0 2–2 1–1 0–0 4–0 – 0–3 Ukraine  2–2 1–0 2–0 1–1 2–0 0–1 –

Group 3

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Portugal 12 9 3 0 35 5 +30 30  Slovakia 12 6 5 1 24 8 +16 23  Russia 12 6 5 1 23 12 +11 23  Estonia 12 5 2 5 16 17 −1 17  Latvia 12 4 3 5 18 21 −3 15  Liechtenstein 12 2 2 8 13 23 −10 8  Luxembourg 12 0 0 12 5 48 −43 0

Estonia  – 2–1 2–0 4–0 0–1 1–1 1–2 Latvia  2–2 – 1–0 4–0 0–2 1–1 1–1 Liechtenstein  1–2 1–3 – 3–0 2–2 1–2 0–0 Luxembourg  0–2 3–4 0–4 – 0–5 0–4 0–4 Portugal  4–0 3–0 2–1 6–0 – 7–1 2–0 Russia  4–0 2–0 2–0 5–1 0–0 – 1–1 Slovakia  1–0 4–1 7–0 3–1 1–1 0–0 –

Group 4

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  France 10 5 5 0 14 2 +12 20   Switzerland 10 4 6 0 18 7 +11 18  Israel 10 4 6 0 15 10 +5 18  Republic of Ireland 10 4 5 1 12 5 +7 17  Cyprus 10 1 1 8 8 20 −12 4  Faroe Islands 10 0 1 9 4 27 −23 1

Cyprus  – 2–2 0–2 1–2 0–1 1–3 Faroe Islands  0–3 – 0–2 0–2 0–2 1–3 France  4–0 3–0 – 0–0 0–0 0–0 Israel  2–1 2–1 1–1 – 1–1 2–2 Republic of Ireland  3–0 2–0 0–1 2–2 – 0–0 Switzerland   1–0 6–0 1–1 1–1 1–1 –

Group 5

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Italy 10 7 2 1 17 8 +9 23  Norway 10 5 3 2 12 7 +5 18  Scotland 10 3 4 3 9 7 +2 13  Slovenia 10 3 3 4 10 13 −3 12  Belarus 10 2 4 4 12 14 −2 10  Moldova 10 1 2 7 5 16 −11 5

Belarus  – 1–4 4–0 0–1 0–0 1–1 Italy  4–3 – 2–1 2–1 2–0 1–0 Moldova  2–0 0–1 – 0–0 1–1 1–2 Norway  1–1 0–0 1–0 – 1–2 3–0 Scotland  0–1 1–1 2–0 0–1 – 0–0 Slovenia  1–1 1–0 3–0 2–3 0–3 –

Group 6

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  England 10 8 1 1 17 5 +12 25  Poland 10 8 0 2 27 9 +18 24  Austria 10 4 3 3 15 12 +3 15  Northern Ireland 10 2 3 5 10 18 −8 9  Wales 10 2 2 6 10 15 −5 8  Azerbaijan 10 0 3 7 1 21 −20 3

Austria  – 2–0 2–2 2–0 1–3 1–0 Azerbaijan  0–0 – 0–1 0–0 0–3 1–1 England  1–0 2–0 – 4–0 2–1 2–0 Northern Ireland  3–3 2–0 1–0 – 0–3 2–3 Poland  3–2 8–0 1–2 1–0 – 1–0 Wales  0–2 2–0 0–1 2–2 2–3 –

Group 7

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Serbia and Montenegro 10 6 4 0 16 1 +15 22  Spain 10 5 5 0 19 3 +16 20  Bosnia and Herzegovina 10 4 4 2 12 9 +3 16  Belgium 10 3 3 4 16 11 +5 12  Lithuania 10 2 4 4 8 9 −1 10  San Marino 10 0 0 10 2 40 −38 0

Belgium  – 4–1 1–1 8–0 0-2 0–2 Bosnia and Herzegovina  1–0 – 1–1 3–0 0–0 1–1 Lithuania  1–1 0–1 – 4–0 0–2 0–0 San Marino  1–2 1–3 0–1 – 0–3 0–6 Serbia and Montenegro  0–0 1–0 2–0 5–0 – 0–0 Spain  2-0 1–1 1-0 5-0 1–1 –

Group 8

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Croatia 10 7 3 0 21 5 +16 24  Sweden 10 8 0 2 30 4 +26 24  Bulgaria 10 4 3 3 17 17 0 15  Hungary 10 4 2 4 13 14 −1 14  Iceland 10 1 1 8 14 27 −13 4  Malta 10 0 3 7 4 32 −28 3

Bulgaria  – 1–3 2–0 3–2 4–1 0–3 Croatia  2–2 – 3–0 4–0 3–0 1–0 Hungary  1–1 0–0 – 3–2 4–0 0–1 Iceland  1–3 1–3 2–3 – 4–1 1–4 Malta  1–1 1–1 0–2 0–0 – 0–7 Sweden  3–0 0–1 3–0 3–1 6–0 –

Play-offs

Ranking of runners-up

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Comment
Sweden	10	8	0	2	30	4	+26	24	Qualified directly
Poland	10	8	0	2	27	9	+18	24
Czech Republic	10	7	0	3	23	11	+12	21	Played play-off
Spain	10	5	5	0	19	3	+16	20
Switzerland	10	4	6	0	18	7	+11	18
Norway	10	5	3	2	12	7	+5	18
Slovakia	10	4	5	1	17	7	+10	17
Turkey	10	4	5	1	13	9	+4	17

Matches

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Spain	6–2	Slovakia	5–1	1–1
Switzerland	4–4 (a)	Turkey	2–0	2–4
Norway	0–2	Czech Republic	0–1	0–1

Qualified teams

The following 14 teams from UEFA qualified for the final tournament.

Team	Qualified as	Qualified on	Previous appearances in FIFA World Cup1
Germany	Hosts	6 July 2000	15 (1934, 1938, 19542, 19582, 19622, 19662, 19702, 19742, 19782, 19822, 19862, 19902, 1994, 1998, 2002)
Netherlands	Group 1 winners	8 October 2005	7 (1934, 1938, 1974, 1978, 1990, 1994, 1998)
Ukraine	Group 2 winners	3 September 2005	0 (debut)
Portugal	Group 3 winners	8 October 2005	3 (1966, 1986, 2002)
France	Group 4 winners	12 October 2005	11 (1930, 1934, 1938, 1954, 1958, 1966, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1998, 2002)
Italy	Group 5 winners	8 October 2005	15 (1934, 1938, 1950, 1954, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002)
England	Group 6 winners	8 October 2005	12 (1950, 1954, 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1998, 2002)
Serbia and Montenegro	Group 7 winners	12 October 2005	9 (19303, 19503, 19543, 19583, 19623, 19743, 19823, 19903, 19983)
Croatia	Group 8 winners	8 October 2005	2 (1998, 2002)
Poland	Best runners-up	8 October 2005	6 (1938, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 2002)
Sweden	Best runners-up	8 October 2005	10 (1934, 1938, 1950, 1958, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1990, 1994, 2002)
Spain	Play-off winners	16 November 2005	11 (1934, 1950, 1962, 1966, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002)
Switzerland	Play-off winners	16 November 2005	7 (1934, 1938, 1950, 1954, 1962, 1966, 1994)
Czech Republic	Play-off winners	16 November 2005	8 (19344, 19384, 19544, 19584, 19624, 19704, 19824, 19904)

¹Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

² Competed as West Germany. A separate team for East Germany also participated in qualifications during this time, having only competed in 1974.

³ From 1930 to 1998, Serbia and Montenegro competed as Yugoslavia.

⁴ From 1934 to 1990, Czech Republic competed as Czechoslovakia.

Goalscorers

11 goals

9 goals

8 goals

7 goals

6 goals

5 goals

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal