Scotland held off Iceland for the second time today at Hampden Park for a 2-1 victory and renewed hope that continued strong play could earn them a spot in the playoff to reach the 2010 World Cup. Ross McCormack opened the scoring in the 39th minute, finally giving the Scots a goal at Hampden. But Indridi Sigurdsson’s 54th minute equalizer stunned the Tartan Army and put Scotland’s hopes on hold. Just ten minutes later though, Steven Fletcher tallied Scotland’s second goal and gave the home side the lead for good.
No one in Group Nine will be catching the Dutch as they cruised to their fifth win in as many matches in qualifying play. But second place is now Scotland’s. The hope would be that this important victory will carry over through the summer and serve as an inspiration in the match in Norway in August. Perhaps by then the myriad injuries can be overcome for a complete squad.
Also today, England scraped by Ukraine with a rather lucky 2-1 victory. Peter Crouch scored early for England, who held that lead for most of the match. But in his return to England, Andriy Shevchenko tallied an important goal as a substitute to draw the Ukrainians even in the 74th minute. John Terry earned the home victory for the English though with his 85th minute goal from close-in.
England did not need the victory as they were already in first place in Group Six, but taking five wins from five matches is a nice run for the side who did not even qualify for Euro 2008.
