2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)

2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)
The European zone of qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup saw 53 teams competing for 13 places at the finals in South Africa. The qualification process started on 20 August 2008, nearly two months after the end of UEFA Euro 2008, and ended on 18 November 2009. The qualification process saw the first competitive matches of Montenegro.
Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, and Switzerland qualified in the first round by winning their groups. France, Greece, Portugal, and Slovenia qualified via the second round play-offs.
Format
Teams were drawn into eight groups of six teams and one group of five teams. The nine group winners qualified directly, while the best eight second-placed teams contested home and away play off matches for the remaining four places. In determining the best eight second placed teams, the results against teams finishing last in the six team groups were not counted for consistency between the five and six team groups.
Seeding
After initially proposing to use a similar system to recent World Cup and European Championship qualification (based on results across the previous two European qualification cycles), the UEFA Executive Committee decided on 27 September 2007 at its meeting in Istanbul that seeding for the qualifiers would be based on FIFA World Rankings, in accordance with the FIFA World Cup regulations (which note that where teams are ranked on "performance" criteria, the FIFA World Rankings must be used).
The November 2007 FIFA World Ranking the most recent at the time of the preliminary draw and used to determine the groups. Initially scheduled for 21 November, FIFA moved the release date of the ranking to 23 November to include the final match days of Euro 2008 qualification.
Teams in bold eventually qualified for the final tournament, teams in bold italic qualified for the final tournament through the play-offs, and teams in italic participated in the play-offs but did not qualify for the final tournament.
Draw
The draw for the group stage took place in Durban, South Africa on 25 November 2007. During the draw, teams were drawn from the six pots A to F (see above) into the nine groups below, starting with pot F, which filled position 6 in the groups, then continued with pot E filling position 5, pot D in position 4 and so on.
Summary
Table – top row: group winners, second row: group runners-up, third row: others. The winner of each group qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup together with winners of play-off. The play-offs took place between the eight best runners-up among all nine groups. The ninth group runner-up did not qualify.
First round
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
Group 5
Group 6
Group 7
Group 8
Group 9
Ranking of second placed teams
Because one group had one team fewer than the others, matches against the sixth placed team in each group were not included in this ranking. As a result, eight matches played by each team counted for the purposes of the second placed table.
Second round
The UEFA second round (often referred to as the play off stage) was contested by the best eight runners up from the nine first round groups. The winners of each of four home and away ties joined the group winners in the World Cup finals in South Africa. Norway, with 10 points, was ranked 9th so failed to qualify for the second round.
Seeding and draw
The eight teams were seeded according to the FIFA World Rankings released on 16 October (shown in parentheses in the table below). The draw for the ties was held in Zürich on 19 October, with the top four teams seeded into one pot and the bottom four teams seeded into a second. A separate draw decided the host of the first leg.
Matches
|}
Qualified teams
The following 13 teams from UEFA qualified for the final tournament.
1 Bold 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 competed together with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia as part of Yugoslavia, while in 2006 as Serbia and Montenegro together with Montenegro.
Goalscorers
There were 725 goals scored over 268 games by 399 different players, for an average of 2.71 goals per game. England were the highest scorers in the European section with 34 goals. Malta did not score any goals, but did score two own goals. The top scorer was Theofanis Gekas of Greece, who scored ten goals.
Note: Goals scored in the play-offs are included.
10 goals
Theofanis Gekas
9 goals
Edin Džeko
Wayne Rooney
7 goals
Miroslav Klose
David Villa
6 goals
Marc Janko
Wesley Sonck
Lukas Podolski
Robbie Keane
Elyaniv Barda
Ebi Smolarek
Stanislav Šesták
Andriy Shevchenko
5 goals
Timofei Kalachev
Zvjezdan Misimović
Dimitar Berbatov
Milan Baroš
Søren Larsen
Jonatan Johansson
Roman Pavlyuchenko
Milan Jovanović
Milivoje Novaković
Alexander Frei
Blaise Nkufo
Serhiy Nazarenko
4 goals
Zlatan Muslimović
Michalis Konstantinou
Peter Crouch
Frank Lampard
André-Pierre Gignac
Thierry Henry
Michael Ballack
Angelos Charisteas
Omer Golan
Alberto Gilardino
Tomas Danilevičius
Simão
3 goals
Erjon Bogdani
Eduardo
Luka Modrić
Ivica Olić
Ivan Rakitić
Tomáš Necid
Nicklas Bendtner
Jermain Defoe
Steven Gerrard
Theo Walcott
Konstantin Vassiljev
Nicolas Anelka
Franck Ribéry
Levan Kobiashvili
Bastian Schweinsteiger
Sándor Torghelle
Eiður Guðjohnsen
Yossi Benayoun
Ben Sahar
Sergei Khizhnichenko
Sergei Ostapenko
Māris Verpakovskis
Marius Stankevičius
Mirko Vučinić
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar
Dirk Kuyt
John Arne Riise
Nani
Andrey Arshavin
Konstantin Zyryanov
Branislav Ivanović
Nikola Žigić
Zlatko Dedić
Juan Mata
Gerard Piqué
David Silva
Olof Mellberg
Tuncay
2 goals
Erwin Hoffer
Vagif Javadov
Elvin Mammadov
Gennadi Bliznyuk
Sergei Kornilenko
Vitali Rodionov
Dmitry Verkhovtsov
Émile Mpenza
Senijad Ibričić
Martin Petrov
Dimitar Telkiyski
Mladen Petrić
Efstathios Aloneftis
Constantinos Charalambidis
Chrysis Michael
Václav Svěrkoš
Christian Poulsen
Joe Cole
Sergei Zenjov
Mikael Forssell
Karim Benzema
William Gallas
Vladimir Dvalishvili
Dimitris Salpingidis
Georgios Samaras
Vasilis Torosidis
Roland Juhász
Kevin Doyle
Richard Dunne
Glenn Whelan
Alberto Aquilani
Daniele De Rossi
Antonio Di Natale
Vincenzo Iaquinta
Vitālijs Astafjevs
Aleksandrs Cauņa
Ģirts Karlsons
Andrejs Rubins
Mindaugas Kalonas
Dejan Damjanović
Stevan Jovetić
Mark van Bommel
Rafael van der Vaart
Warren Feeney
Kyle Lafferty
Grant McCann
Steffen Iversen
Morten Gamst Pedersen
Rafał Boguski
Ireneusz Jeleń
Mariusz Lewandowski
Robert Lewandowski
Marek Saganowski
Hugo Almeida
Bruno Alves
Liédson
Gheorghe Bucur
Ciprian Marica
Diniyar Bilyaletdinov
Aleksandr Kerzhakov
James McFadden
Miloš Krasić
Nenad Milijaš
Marek Čech
Marek Hamšík
Martin Jakubko
Ján Kozák
Valter Birsa
Robert Koren
Zlatan Ljubijankić
Nejc Pečnik
Cesc Fàbregas
Álvaro Negredo
Marcus Berg
Zlatan Ibrahimović
Kim Källström
Philippe Senderos
Arda Turan
Emre Belözoğlu
Semih Şentürk
Artem Milevskyi
Yevhen Seleznyov
Andriy Yarmolenko
David Edwards
1 goal
Armend Dallku
Klodian Duro
Hamdi Salihi
Ildefons Lima
Marc Pujol
Óscar Sonejee
Robert Arzumanyan
Gevorg Ghazaryan
Hovhannes Goharyan
Sargis Hovsepyan
Vahagn Minasyan
Henrik Mkhitaryan
René Aufhauser
Andreas Ivanschitz
Stefan Maierhofer
Franz Schiemer
Martin Stranzl
Roman Wallner
Maksim Bardachov
Alexander Hleb
Vyacheslav Hleb
Leonid Kovel
Pavel Sitko
Ihar Stasevich
Steven Defour
Mousa Dembélé
Marouane Fellaini
Gill Swerts
Daniel Van Buyten
Zlatan Bajramović
Vedad Ibišević
Sanel Jahić
Sejad Salihović
Emir Spahić
Stanislav Angelov
Valeri Domovchiyski
Blagoy Georgiev
Radostin Kishishev
Dimitar Makriev
Stiliyan Petrov
Ivelin Popov
Ivan Klasnić
Niko Kovač
Niko Kranjčar
Mario Mandžukić
Ognjen Vukojević
Demetris Christofi
Marios Elia
Konstantinos Makrides
Ioannis Okkas
Martin Fenin
Marek Jankulovski
Radoslav Kováč
Jaroslav Plašil
Zdeněk Pospěch
Daniel Pudil
Libor Sionko
Daniel Agger
Leon Andreasen
Daniel Jensen
Thomas Kahlenberg
Morten Nordstrand
Jakob Poulsen
Gareth Barry
Rio Ferdinand
Emile Heskey
John Terry
Shaun Wright-Phillips
Andres Oper
Raio Piiroja
Sander Puri
Vladimir Voskoboinikov
Egil á Bø
Arnbjørn Hansen
Bogi Løkin
Andreas Lava Olsen
Súni Olsen
Shefki Kuqi
Jari Litmanen
Niklas Moisander
Roni Porokara
Daniel Sjölund
Hannu Tihinen
Mika Väyrynen
Yoann Gourcuff
Sidney Govou
Alexander Iashvili
Levan Kenia
Thomas Hitzlsperger
Marcell Jansen
Simon Rolfes
Piotr Trochowski
Heiko Westermann
Kostas Katsouranis
Ákos Buzsáky
Zoltán Gera
Tamás Hajnal
Szabolcs Huszti
Gergely Rudolf
Veigar Páll Gunnarsson
Heiðar Helguson
Indriði Sigurðsson
Kristján Örn Sigurðsson
Sean St Ledger
Aviram Baruchyan
David Ben Dayan
Klemi Saban
Salim Tuama
Mauro Camoranesi
Fabio Grosso
Giampaolo Pazzini
Andrea Pirlo
Rinat Abdulin
Ruslan Baltiev
Zhambyl Kukeyev
Tanat Nusserbayev
Roman Uzdenov
Kaspars Gorkšs
Kristaps Grebis
Deniss Ivanovs
Vladimirs Koļesņičenko
Andrejs Perepļotkins
Aleksejs Višņakovs
Jurijs Žigajevs
Mario Frick
Michele Polverino
Saulius Mikoliūnas
Alphonse Leweck
René Peters
Jeff Strasser
Boban Grnčarov
Filip Ivanovski
Ilčo Naumoski
Goran Pandev
Aco Stojkov
Serghei Alexeev
Valeriu Andronic
Denis Calincov
Gheorghe Ovseannicov
Igor Picușceac
Veaceslav Sofroni
Radoslav Batak
Andrija Delibašić
Eljero Elia
John Heitinga
Nigel de Jong
Joris Mathijsen
André Ooijer
Robin van Persie
Arjen Robben
Chris Brunt
Steven Davis
Jonny Evans
David Healy
Gareth McAuley
Thorstein Helstad
Erik Huseklepp
Jakub Błaszczykowski
Paweł Brożek
Michał Żewłakow
Deco
Edinho
Raul Meireles
Pepe
Miguel Veloso
Iulian Apostol
Răzvan Cociș
Dorin Goian
Ionuț Mazilu
Florentin Petre
Dorel Stoica
Cristian Tănase
Vasili Berezutski
Sergei Ignashevich
Pavel Pogrebnyak
Igor Semshov
Andy Selva
Kirk Broadfoot
Scott Brown
Steven Fletcher
Ross McCormack
Zdravko Kuzmanović
Ivan Obradović
Marko Pantelić
Neven Subotić
Zoran Tošić
Ľuboš Hanzel
Filip Hološko
Erik Jendrišek
Miroslav Karhan
Peter Pekarík
Martin Škrtel
Miroslav Stoch
Andraž Kirm
Aleksandar Radosavljević
Dalibor Stevanović
Marko Šuler
Xabi Alonso
Joan Capdevila
Santi Cazorla
Andrés Iniesta
Juanito
Carles Puyol
Albert Riera
Marcos Senna
Samuel Holmén
Daniel Majstorović
Anders Svensson
Eren Derdiyok
Gélson Fernandes
Stéphane Grichting
Benjamin Huggel
Marco Padalino
Hakan Yakin
Halil Altıntop
Mevlüt Erdinç
Sercan Yıldırım
Servet Çetin
Oleksiy Gai
Oleh Husyev
Yaroslav Rakytskiy
Craig Bellamy
James Collins
Joe Ledley
Aaron Ramsey
David Vaughan
Sam Vokes
1 own goal
Ildefons Lima (playing against Ukraine)
Jón Rói Jacobsen (playing against Serbia)
Veli Lampi (playing against Russia)
Petri Pasanen (playing against Russia)
Julien Escudé (playing against Romania)
Avraam Papadopoulos (playing against Luxembourg)
Kevin Kilbane (playing against Bulgaria)
Aleksandr Kuchma (playing against England)
Mario Frick (playing against Wales)
Ian Azzopardi (playing against Sweden)
Brian Said (playing against Portugal)
Seweryn Gancarczyk (playing against Slovakia)
Michał Żewłakow (playing against Northern Ireland)
Dorel Stoica (playing against Serbia)
Ján Ďurica (playing against Northern Ireland)
Ashley Williams (playing against Germany)
2 own goals
Kakha Kaladze (playing against Italy)
References
External links
European Zone at FIFA.com
UEFA Qualifier results with full game box scores at Scoreshelf.com
UEFA
FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)
Qual