A heavy price was paid for Russia & Gus Hiddinks side

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The Russians would be kicking themselves for not completing the match on Saturday as a shocker allowed Slovenia to qualify for South Africa at Russia’s expense. The Russian team had a one goal advantage but squandered, missed and ultimately lost everything at the hands of the lesser favoured opponents. Russian defence completely collapsed and they were reduced to all but nine men at the latter half of the match and made things terribly complex for themselves.

Slovenia dominated the match throughout with lots of chances and got the only goal of the match in the 44th minute, just before half time through Zlatko Dedic. The Bochum striker collected a cross from Valter Birsa and “toe ended” towards goal. The Slovenia starting 11 was unchanged while Guus Hiddink introduced Renat Yanbaev at left back and pushed Yuri Zhirkov forward to the left. Slovenia were always looking dangerous and they started the match with full of intent and purpose and rung the danger bells for the Russian defence as early as the fourth minute when Birsa’s ball was left open for Milivoje Novakovic and six minutes later a cross from Andraz Kirm deflected off Sergei Ignasevich and strolled dangerously away.

Chances flew in again and again towards the Russian goal with Dedic again beating the Russian defence and aiming a shot goal wards. After the half time mark, Sergei Semak and Aleksandr Kerzhakov were introduced but the Dynamo Moscow striker was the first to be shown a red card. Zhirkov continued to worry the Slovenians a bit with his crosses and Pavel Pogrebnyak was introduced as well who had a great chance of scoring from Arshavin’s cross. Meanwhile the agony piled up when Zhirkov was shown the second yellow card after a tussle with a Slovenian substitute. The final whistle dashed all Russian hopes.

Meanwhile Greece pulled out another shocker when Dmitris Salpingidis scored for them in an otherwise tough match for the Greek team. Greece never really looked comfortable against the Ukrainian attack and Andry Shevchenko missed a chance as early as the eighth minute of the match while Oleg Gusev missed the last chance with his six yard shot going wide. It was Sheva’s last chance for appearing in the World Cup one last time.

Meanwhile Uruguay has qualified for South Africa next courtesy the goal from Sebastian Abreu’s equalizer in the 70th minute which made it 2-1 in aggregate and thus sealed their berth. Uruguay would want to improve their performances in the near future and their coach Oscar Tabarez has promised an improved performance in the World Cup. Even the players would agree that they need to lift their games in order to achieve something out of this World Cup.

Finally the most intense battle of the night and the nerves went towards Algeria as they scraped past Egypt in front of their home crowd as they beat Egypt 1-0 with the only goal of the match coming from centre half, Antar Yahia scoring just before half time. It was a perfect gift for the thousands of Algerian fans queuing inside and outside the Stadium.