Karhan and D' Alessandro celebrate

Wolfsburg - Two wolves helped their national teams  on Wednesday (08.06.05) in their bids for World Cup  2006. Miroslav Karhan defended Slovakia’s second place position in division 3 . The Eastern Europeans beat the Luxemburg "soccer midgets", as expected, by a margin of 4-0 (2-0). The goals were scored by Nemeth Szilard (5), Marek Mintal from 1. FC Nürnberg (15), Karol Kisel (54) and Lubomir Reiter (60). Karhan played the entire 90 minutes. Since Portugal also experienced a "three" with a 1-0 victory in Estonia (goal: Cristiano Ronaldo), the distance of three points from first place has not changed for the Slovaks. Russia is in third place with 14 points and one less game played.

The "Gauchos" win their ticket to Germany

Andres D'Alessandros’ national team, two-time world-champions Argentinia, won 3-1 (3-0) over defending champions Brazil in a prestigious contest on Wednesday (local time). The "Gauchos" thus became the first team from the South American division to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The game was already decided after the first half-time. Hernan Crespo proved to be the man of the evening, bringing the Albiceleste to 1-0 on the path to victory with an early goal in front of 50,000 spectators at the sold-out Monumental Stadium in Buenos Aires (4). Five minutes before the break, the striker from AC Mailand raised the score to 3-0. Before that Juan Roman Riquelme from the third-place Spanish league FC Villareal had provided for the 2-0 lead (18).

The Argentinians, coached by José Pekerman, shifted down a gear in the second half, and some good opportunities opened up for Brazil. But the world champs only managed a consolation goal, through one of Roberto Carlos’ (70) feared free kicks, to make it 1-3. Thus, D'Alessandro was able to watch a generally unthreatened victory for his team from the bench.

Three games before the end of the season, Argentinia leads the South American division with 31 points, in front of Brazil (27), Ecuador (23) and Paraguay (22). The first four teams in the division qualify directly for the World Cup. Therefore, the Selecao continue to have excellent prospects for obtaining the ticket to Germany, despite the defeat against their arch-rivals. The fifth-place team gets the chance to qualify for the final round in two playoff games against the champion from Oceania. At the moment Colombia is in fifth place with 20 points, having surprised Ecuador on Wednesday with a decisive 3-0 (2-0) victory.