Slovakia, Switzerland Punch Tickets to 2010 World Cup

It's hard to imagine a scenario where the date Oct. 14, 2009 doesn't become the stuff of lore in the European country of Slovakia as it turned out to be the day the nation booked its place in its first FIFA World Cup finals.

And the Slovaks achieved history in perhaps the most adverse conditions possible in a soccer match, downing Poland 1-0 at the Silesian Stadium during a driving snowstorm that would seem more at home for an NFL playoff match than a World Cup qualifier.

Slovakia made an own-goal by in the fourth minute from Seweryn Gancarczyk stand up for the rest of the match. When the final blew, the Slovakian players rushed toward the crowd to celebrate with the handful of fellow countrymen who braved the weather to witness history.

The run by Slovakia under coach Vladimir Weiss is rather remarkable, as they edged out both the Czech Republic (which the nation split apart with in the 1993) and Poland, which had qualified for both the 2006 World Cup and 2008 Euro. In fact neither of those countries will be in South Africa, as Slovenia finished second to enter the UEFA Playoffs.

But back to Slovakia. For English-speaking fans, perhaps the only known entity on the Repre roster is Liverpool central defender Martin Skrtel.

No matter, the Slovaks went through qualifying with a 7-2-1 mark and join Serbia as European countries that will make their Finals debut as independent nations next June.

Elsewhere across the continent, Switzerland qualified by winning Group 2 thanks to a 0-0 draw with Israel, knocking Greece into the second-place playoffs.

Rounding out the second-place playoffs will be: Russia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzogovina, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland and France, along with the aforementioned Slovenia and Greece.

The draw for the playoffs will take place on Ict. 19 in Zurich and will be played on Nov. 14 and 18. The draw will use the FIFA rankings released on Friday to seed the teams, so it's likely that Russia, France, Greece and Portugal will be seperated, as they have the current highest rankings by a fair amount.

Notable countries that will now start looking toward qualification for Euro 2010, include: Croatia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Norway, which was the lowest rated second-place finisher and eliminated from playoff contention.

In other noteworthy matches from the final day of qualification included, England defeating Belarus thanks to a brace from Peter Crouch, Italy ralling from down two goals to beat Cyprus 3-2 on a hat trick by Alberto Gilardino in the final 14 minutes and Spain finishing qualification with a perfect 10 wins after a winning at Bosnia 5-2.

Overall, aside from the mild surprise of Slovakia getting through automatically, UEFA qualification went pretty much by the book, though the exclusion of Croatia is a bit surprising. The playoffs could yield the bigger shocks, especially if France or Portugal stumble.