Portugal beat North Macedonia 2-0 in play-off semi-final to qualify for this year's World Cup; Bruno Fernandes scored twice for the hosts in Porto; Poland secured a similarly straightforward 2-0 win over Sweden in Chorzow to progress to Qatar 2022
Wednesday 30 March 2022 07:06, UK
Bruno Fernandes scored twice as Portugal sealed their place in their sixth consecutive World Cup finals with a 2-0 win over North Macedonia in Porto.
Fernandes ended the visitors' resistance with a 32nd-minute opener after being played in by a neat bit of skill from Cristiano Ronaldo.
From that moment on there was little danger of the North Macedonians repeating the heroics that saw them dump Italy out of the play-offs with a dramatic late winner in Palermo last week.
Fernandes sealed his side's passage to Qatar in the 65th minute when he finished off a lightning counter-attack by stroking the ball past keeper Stole Dimitrievski.
Meanwhile, Poland joined Portugal in Qatar after securing a similarly straightforward 2-0 win over Sweden in Chorzow.
The Poles, granted a bye to the final qualifying stage following the expulsion of Russia, led through Robert Lewandowski's 49th-minute penalty before a 74th-minute effort from Piotr Zielinski sealed the deal.
By the end of March, we will know 28 of the 32 participants at the first winter World Cup. The final three places will be decided in the intercontinental playoffs in June as well as the final European playoff final which has been delayed due to the Ukraine-Russia crisis.
The draw for the tournament takes place on Friday 1 April 2022, at the DECC venue in Doha, Qatar at circa 5pm BST.
You can follow the draw live on skysports.com and the Sky Sports app.
The 32 nations involved in the 2022 World Cup will be drawn into eight groups of four.
Host nation Qatar will be in position one of Group A. The other nations will be split into four pots based on FIFA rankings with the top-rated teams joining Qatar in pot one.
Each group will have no more than one nation from any confederation, aside from Europe who can have no more than two nations in any one group.
Scotland will be in with the lowest-ranked seeds, along with Wales.
FIFA has revealed that the three teams still in with a chance of progressing through the play-off path by the time of the draw will be treated as one entrant, and placed in pot four with the lowest-ranked nations.
The seeding of other nations who have definitely qualified by the time of the draw will be determined by the FIFA rankings due to be published on March 31.
The top pot of seeds will feature the seven highest-ranked sides involved, plus hosts Qatar. England are currently ranked fifth in the world, with only Belgium, Brazil, France and Argentina above them.
It means England could be drawn in the same group as Germany - who are currently ranked 11th and therefore among the pot of second seeds.
