The 2018 World Cup fired its starting pistol with huge
shocks in the Asia and Caribbean qualifiers right from the start, while the
quest to France continued in Europe.
A rare win for Bhutan shocked the world of football as the
Bhutanese not only stunned Sri Lanka with a single away goal but went on to
celebrate a 2-1 victory in the return match and progress from the preliminary
round while little Brunei, who silenced their Taiwanese hosts 1-0, came unstuck
2-0 on their return home. East Timor did enough in their home match as they mangled
Mongolia 4-1 while Cambodia who were held to a 1-1 draw in Macau also
progressed on the strength of their home win and Yemen who played both their
matches against Pakistan on neutral grounds went through despite the Pakistanis
holding them to a goalless draw in Bahrain.
In the Caribbean zone Barbados were dumbfounded 1-0 at home
by the US Virgin Islands, but hit back with 4 in their away fixture while the
Cayman Islands, who blanked out Belize in Belmopan, went out on the away goals
rule after a heroic 1-1 home draw. The British Virgin Islands, who lost
narrowly 1-0 away to Antigua and Barbuda in a friendly, made life difficult for
Dominica who were playing both legs of their qualifiers at home losing only 3-2
and drawing 0-0 in their second match. Montserrat also showed improvement
losing only 2-1 in Curacao and drawing their home match 2-2 to move up in the
football rankings. Honduras were shocked 3-1 away to French Guiana in a Gold
Cup playoff match but overturned the outcome with a 3-0 win in the return fixture.
Wales struck 3 times in Israel in the Euro qualifier and
Belgium put 5 past their Cypriot visitors while Austria enjoyed a 5-0 win in
Liechtenstein and Iceland hit 3 in Kazakhstan.
Both the Czech Republic and the Netherlands scored last-minute
goals on home soil to earn 1-1 draws denying Latvia and Turkey respectively was
would have been famous victories while Greece were held to a goalless draw in
Hungary and Italy drew 2-2 in Bulgaria. Belarus won 2-1 in Macedonia and Sweden
struck twice in Moldova without reply while Romania could only manage a single
goal at home to the Faroe Islands and Azerbaijan put 2 past their Maltese
visitors.
Among friendly matches Cape Verde celebrated a 2-0 victory
over their Portuguese hosts while Iran enjoyed the same result against Chile in
Austria and Uganda won 1-0 away to Nigeria. Brazil beat France 3-1 in Paris and
Ghana lost 2-1 in Senegal while Equatorial Guinea drew 1-1 away to African
champions Ivory Coast and Guam shared 4 goals with hosts Singapore. Gabon got
the better of Mali 4-3 in France and Algeria romped to a 4-1 win in Oman while
Niger lost 2-0 in Mauritania and Kazakhstan drew 0-0 in Russia.