Croatia clinched the final automatic qualifying spot for Euro 2024 on Tuesday as Wales was forced to settle for a play-off place, while France had to come from behind to draw in Greece.<\/p>\n
Semifinalists at the World Cup 12 months ago, Croatia knew it would qualify for next year\u2019s European Championship in Germany with a win against Armenia in Zagreb, but any slip-up would have allowed Wales to leapfrog them into second place in Group D.<\/p>\n
In the end, it was a header two minutes before half-time by Ante Budimir that gave Croatia a 1-0 win to take them through, while Wales could only draw 1-1 with already-qualified Turkey in Cardiff.<\/p>\n
ALSO READ | FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifiers: Argentina beats Brazil 1-0 to go top of table after crowd violence delays start<\/a><\/p>\n Croatia\u2019s prospects of automatic qualification had appeared in doubt when it lost to both Turkey and Wales in October, but it became the 21st and final automatic qualifier for the 24-team tournament next June and July.<\/p>\n \u201cWe deserve to be at the Euro and we have a lot of time now to prepare for what awaits us there,\u201d veteran captain Luka Modric told\u00a0 UEFA.com.<\/p>\n Wales will now go into the play-offs next March to determine whether they qualify for a third consecutive Euro.<\/p>\n A draw this Thursday will decide whether it faces Finland, Ukraine or Iceland in the play-off semifinals.<\/p>\n A victory in that would set up a final decider against Poland or Estonia, with three qualifying spots in total on offer in the play-offs.<\/p>\n It beat Ukraine in a play-off to qualify for last year\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n Rob Page\u2019s side needed to beat Turkey on Tuesday to stand a chance of overtaking Croatia, and they went ahead through an early Neco Williams goal. However, Yusuf Yazici\u2019s 70th-minute penalty earned Turkey a draw.<\/p>\n \u201cThat level of performance is what we need to do. If we do that when we come back together in March we\u2019ll be ok,\u201d insisted Page.<\/p>\n French denied a late winner<\/p>\n France missed out on finishing with a perfect record in Group B as it drew 2-2 with Greece in Athens.<\/p>\n Randal Kolo Muani\u2019s opener put France, with Kylian Mbappe rested from the starting line-up, in front late in the first half.<\/p>\n
\nComments\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a header two minutes before half-time by Ante Budimir that gave Croatia a 1-0 win to take them through, while Wales could only draw 1-1 with already-qualified Turkey in Cardiff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football-sport-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baysidesports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}