France, Sweden and Serbia qualify

France, Serbia and Sweden became the latest teams to secure their places in the World Cup finals yesterday but European champions Greece went out despite beating Georgia 1-0 in Athens.

Spain trounced San Marino 6-0 but they will have to face another round to reach next year's finals. They join Norway, Slovakia, Turkey, Switzerland and the Czech Republic who last night clinched places in the European zone play-offs.

In Paris, France earned a stylish 4-0 victory over Cyprus to finish top of a tightly contested Group Four.

The former world and European champions ended a generally lacklustre campaign with 20 points from 10 games. Switzerland, second on 18 points after their goalless draw in Ireland,.

Les Bleus, despite being deprived of their best two strikers David Trezeguet and Thierry Henry through injury, scored three times before the break in their most convincing performance since Raymond Domenech became coach in July 2004.

The French also sealed their first success at the Stade de France under Domenech and completed their first successful World Cup qualifying campaign since 1986 when they were led by Michel Platini.

Sweden, who were almost certain of going through from Group Eight before they started against Iceland in Stockholm, made sure when they recovered from 1-0 down to seal a 3-1 victory.

Sweden had to lose by 13 goals with results going against them elsewhere if they were to fail to qualify and although Kari Arnason's opener for Iceland ruffled the hosts they soon hit back through Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Henrik Larsson and Kim Kaellstroem, in stoppage time, added the other goals.

Croatia, who had already qualified, drew 0-0 in Hungary to take first place in the group and Sweden qualified automatically as one of the two best runners-up.

Turkey and the Czech Republic maintained their hopes of reaching the finals but Greece, surprisingly crowned European champions 15 months ago, were eliminated.

With Ukraine wrapping up top spot in Group Two last month, Turkey made sure of finishing second with a 1-0 win in Albania to move to 23 points.

Denmark finished third after a 2-1 win over Kazakhstan and Greece were fourth following their 1-0 home win over Georgia.

The Czech Republic also go into tomorrow's play-off draw after beating Finland 3-0 in Helsinki with goals from Tomas Jun, Tomas Rosicky and Marek Heinz.

That result lifted the Czechs above Romania and into second place behind the Netherlands who finished on 32 points after a 0-0 home draw with Macedonia.

Serbia and Montenegro beat bitter Balkan rivals Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 with an early goal from striker Mateja Kezman to qualify for next year's finals.

The match was played in a charged atmosphere as the raucous 50,000 home crowd and a tiny contingent of Bosnian fans sporadically pelted each other with flares and plastic seats, forcing police to create large buffer zones between them.

The home side dominated the match and might have scored more goals after Kezman poked in the winner on seven minutes from point blank range .

Tension eased after the interval and the players shook hands after the final whistle as the home crowd went into raptures and started celebrations likely to go on long into the night.

The legacy of the bloody 1992-95 Bosnian war lingered in the air throughout the match, however. One banner reminded the visitors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim males by Bosnian Serb forces.

Chants and banners praised Ratko Mladic, the fugitive Bosnian Serb army commander indicted for genocide for the massacre.

In Bratislava, Slovakia made it to the play-offs by holding Russia to a goalless draw. Slovakia finished ahead of Russia on goal difference after both teams, who drew 1-1 in Moscow in September 2004, ended the qualifying campaign with 23 points.

Reaching the play-offs is Slovakia's biggest soccer success in its 12-year history as an independent state.

Gilardino, Lampard hit late winners

A late winner by Milan striker Alberto Gilardino gave Group Five winners Italy a 2-1 win against bottom-placed Moldova to round off their World Cup qualifying campaign.

The Azzurri ended with 23 points from 10 matches, five points ahead of second-placed Norway, who went into the play-offs.

Italy had already assured themselves of a place in next year's World Cup finals after beating Slovenia 1-0 at the weekend.

With nothing at stake, Italy coach Marcello Lippi opted to field a largely second-string team, fronted by an attacking trident of Alessandro Del Piero, Christian Vieri and Vincenzo Iaquinta.

Vieri gave the hosts the lead in the 71st minute, when he steered a Del Piero cross into the net.

Their lead was short-lived though. Nine minutes later midfielder Alexandru Gatcan left De Sanctis flat-footed with a fierce drive from outside the area.

The game appeared to be petering out to a draw, but Gilardino, who came on as a second-half substitute in place of Iaquinta, took advantage of a poor clearance to beat Moldovan keeper Serghei Pascenco from close range.

At Old Trafford, a superb 80th minute strike by Frank Lampard gave England a 2-1 victory over Poland and top place in Group Six.

Both sides had already qualified for the finals but Lampard's volley made a much-criticised England team group winners and left Poland to head to Germany as one of Europe's best runners-up.

Captain Michael Owen gave England, showing their best form of the season, a deserved lead after 43 minutes but Poland substitute Tomasz Frankowski volleyed an equaliser in first-half stoppage time.

Play-offs draw tomorrow...

The following six teams will go into tomorrow's draw for the play-offs for the three remaining World Cup qualifying slots from the European zone: Norway, Turkey, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland.

The draw will be seeded, based on September's FIFA world rankings. The Czech Republic (ranked 4th), Spain (8th) and Turkey (12th) will go into one pot and each play a team from a second pot containing Norway (37th), Switzerland (38th) and Slovakia (45th).

The first leg of the play-offs will be on November 12 with the return leg on November 16.

Sweden and Poland took the automatic qualification places available to the two best runners-up.