A sad and happy night in football! Portugal suffered a defeat, England and Spain won a big victory, and 28 teams won the right to participate in the World Cup

In the early morning of October 15th, the World Cup preliminaries ended in many games. Teams such as England, Spain, and Italy all won, and the Three Lions became the first European team to qualify for the World Cup. As the competition in Asia and Africa comes to an end, the number of teams confirmed to participate in the World Cup has reached 28.

Spain 4:0 Bulgaria

Spain won with 3 goals in the first round. Bulgaria has lost all 3 games so far. In the last round, it was even beaten 6:1 by Turkey at home! After the game started, Wusov, as the goalkeeper of Bulgaria, was not unexpectedly the busiest person; he made 5 key saves in the first half with high passes, but he was unable to defeat the four hands with two fists; in the 35th minute, Pedri passed the ball into the penalty area, Lenormand passed it with a header, and Merino scored with a header, 1:0! In the 57th minute, Grimaldo made a pass and Merino scored twice with a header, 2:0! In the 79th minute, Garcia swept in front of the goal, and Chernev made a clearance and scored an own goal; in the 92nd minute, Merino created another penalty kick opportunity, and Oyarzabal fired a penalty to fix the score at 4:0! Spain has won 4 games without conceding a goal and is only one step away from qualifying for the World Cup.

Italy 3:0 Israel

In this World Cup preliminaries, they are in the same group as Norway. Due to a 3-goal defeat in the first round and a 19-goal difference, the Azzurri also lost the initiative to compete for first place in the group; the Azzurri have a high probability of needing to participate in the play-offs. In this round against Israel, Italy did not take it lightly. Retegui took the lead in taking a penalty kick; in the 73rd minute of the second half, he scored twice to expand the advantage. In addition, Mancini scored another goal before the end of the game. Italy won by 3 goals and achieved 5 consecutive victories; it is still 3 points behind Norway after 6 rounds.

Portugal 2:2 Hungary

Portugal was the only giant team that did not win that night, and it was still tied by its opponent even though it was leading. In the 8th minute of the game, Szoboszlai took the lead and assisted Shaloi to score. Immediately, the 40-year-old Ronaldo stepped forward. The president scored twice with two precise movements in the 22nd minute and half stoppage time. He scored twice in the world preliminaries with 41 goals. His personal goals reached 948 goals, which is also the first.

Unfortunately, in the 91st minute, Portugal's defense made a marking error, and Szoboszlai hit a shot to complete the tie. The two sides scored 1 point at 2:2. Although they missed the 4th consecutive victory in the group stage, Portugal's lead was still 5 points; one more win in the last 2 rounds will earn the right to participate in the World Cup in advance.

England 5:0 Latvia

England became the first team in Europe to advance. In this round, the Three Lions swept the underdog Latvia with 5 goals in the away game; in 6 games, they achieved 6 wins, 18 goals and no goals. With two rounds left, they were 7 points ahead of second-ranked Albania, and therefore qualified early without any suspense. This is also the 17th time England has participated in the World Cup in history. Their best performance in the World Cup was winning as a host in 1966. In the last World Cup, they lost 1-2 to France in the top 8 and were eliminated; Kane missed a key penalty.

At the same time, the Asian side also played the last two games of the fourth stage. Qatar defeated the United Arab Emirates 2:1 to take first place in Group A, and Saudi Arabia drew 0:0 with Iraq. With the goal difference equal to Iraq, it successfully qualified for the first place in Group B at this stage by virtue of its goal difference. Saudi Arabia has also become the eighth AFC team to advance to the World Cup finals after Japan, Iran, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Jordan, Australia and Qatar.

In addition, the final round of the African qualifiers has ended. In the two key matchups in Group C, Nigeria 4-0 Benin, while South Africa defeated Benin 3-0 and overtook Benin by 1 point to advance to the World Cup finals. Senegal in Group B and Cote d'Ivoire in Group F both defeated their opponents to advance to the 2026 US-Canada-Mexico World Cup. Senegal has also become the ninth African team to qualify for the finals of this World Cup after Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Ghana, Cape Verde, South Africa and Cote d'Ivoire; so far, 28 teams have successfully qualified for the 2026 World Cup finals.