Saturday:
Denmark 1-1 Portugal
France 1-1 Romania
Georgia 0-2 Italy
Poland 1-1 Northern Ireland
Spain 5-0 Belgium
Wednesday:
Germany 4-0 Azerbaijan
Hungary 0-1 Portugal
Italy 2-0 Bulgaria
Scotland 0-1 Netherlands
Serbia 1-1 France
Slovenia 3-0 Poland
Spain 3-0 Estonia
The writing appeared to be on the wall for Les Bleus and for Raymond Domenech after just nine minutes of Wednesday's game in Belgrade when Hugo Lloris was sent off and Nejad Milijas converted the resultant penalty. As he had on the previous Saturday, up stepped Thierry Henry to rescue the situation, swooping on a rebound off the keeper after Nicolas Anelka's speculator was fumbled. Saturday saw Henry put France ahead against Romania, but the hapless Julien Escudé put through his own net in comical style to level it. Two draws aren't good enough on their own, but results elsewhere mean France are in second place in the group, four behind Serbia and four clear of Austria who are third. The play-offs beckon, but that won't be enough to save Domenech. He has totally failed to get a very good crop of players playing well together and internal divisions are reportedly widespread.
The Dutch have finished their campaign and signed off with a win in Glasgow. They had stand-in keeper Michel Vorm, of in-form Utrecht, to thank in a large part as he pulled off a string of top notch saves to keep the Scots at bay. Having done that, it was Eljero Elia, off the bench in place of Arjen Robben, to pop up and take the ball round David Marshall and tuck it away to end the Oranje qualifying campaign with a 100% record.
Poland are out. In need of two wins to stand any real chance of qualification, they completely ballsed it up. A battling draw at Windsor Park wasn't necessarily too bad, but the capitulation in Slovenia on Wednesday consigned them to fifth place in the group and signalled the end of Leo Beenhakker's tenure.
Portugal live to fight another day, although it's still tough for them to get through. The draw with Denmark was useful, but it meant that they had to beat Hungary on Wednesday. Pepé's early header put them ahead and they hung on for a not-entirely-convincing win. Sweden are still in the box seat for the play-off place, but this one is going to the wire.
Estonia were brushed aside by Spain as they waltzed into the finals. Cesc Fabregas got things moving on Wednesday with a tidy goal involving him and David Silva. Santi Cazorla is back and doing great and added a second before Juan Mata wrapped it up. They'll be among the top two or three favourites next year.
Italy aren't there yet, but they're within touching distance after two comfortable wins. Two Kakha Kaladze own goals gifted them victory in Tblisi on Saturday before Fabio Grosso and Vincenzo Iaquinta gave them another 2-0 win on Wednesday. They're four clear of Ireland with two games to play and the next fixture is against Trappatoni's Irish in Dublin next month. A point will do them.
Two wins over the week for Russia coupled with Germany's routine win over Azerbaijan sets up a showdown between the two nations next month on Russian soil. Two Miroslav Klose goals were sandwiched by a Michael Ballack penalty and Lukas Podolski's first goal of the season saw off the Azeris to leave them Germans a point ahead of Russia with two to go. The winner of the clash on the tenth of October will probably top the group with a draw favouring Germany.
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