Spain secures place at Euro 2008 Wednesday, November 14, 2007
A 3-0 win over Sweden gave Spain a place in their fourth successive European Championship finals.
Luis Aragones' in-form team booked their ticket in fine style Saturday, dominating from start to finish in front of a capacity 75,000 crowd in Real Madrid's Estadio Bernabeu.
The impressive victory with goals from Joan Capdevila, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Ramos confirms Spain's status as the in-form side of 2007.
They have won nine out of their eleven matches this year, drawing the other two and losing none. Luis Aragones' team are now top of Group F with 25 points from 11 goals. They need just one point from Wednesday's home game against Northern Ireland to finish as group leaders.
Sweden, for their part, have 23 points now, and need a draw from their last match at home to Latvia on Wednesday in order to book their ticket to the finals. Northern Ireland are now third in the group with 20 points after Saturday's 2-1 win over Denmark.
In order to qualify, they need to beat Spain on Wednesday and pray for a shock Latvian win in Stockholm. 'I'm happy that we have qualified,' goal scorer Iniesta told Television Espanola.
'We had some difficult moments at the start of this campaign,' he added, referring to defeats away to Northern Ireland and Sweden, 'and we have had to suffer'. Ramos, for his part, said that he wanted to 'enjoy this win with the fans, who really got behind us tonight'.
The Real Madrid defender finished by saying that 'many fans were disappointed with our elimination in the World Cup (in the second round against France), but now we have set up for ourselves another opportunity'.
Veteran Swedish defender Olof Mellberg said: 'We didn't play at all tonight. Now we have to concentrate on doing better on Wednesday.'
