Captain Zinedine Zidane after scoring the opening goal during France’s World Cup qualifier against Cyprus on Wednesday. (AFP)

London: Former champions France, along with Sweden and Serbia & Montenegro, sealed their places in next year’s World Cup finals on a tense last night of European qualifying competition on Wednesday.

There was also cause for celebration in Norway, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland ? the six teams which will feature in next month’s European play-offs.

But there was little to cheer in Athens as Greece’s hollow 1-0 win over Georgia could not prevent the European champions being eliminated from group II.

Denmark were also eliminated from group II, Turkey winning 1-0 in Albania to take second place behind Ukraine and reach the play-offs.

Bahrain went a step nearer their first World Cup finals with a win over Uzbekistan on away goals in the Asian play-off. A 0-0 draw in Manama put Bahrain through to a play-off with Trinidad & Tobago after Saturday’s replayed first leg ended 1-1 in Tashkent.

Trinidad stunned Mexico 2-1 to render Guatemala’s game against Costa Rica meaningless. Uzbekistan originally won the first leg 1-0 but Fifa declared the result void after a refereeing error.

The South American play-off berth went to Uruguay, who edged Argentina 1-0 to take fifth spot in the 10-team group ahead of Chile and Colombia. Uruguay will meet Australia over two legs next month in the final inter-continental play-off.

Twentyseven of the 32 qualifiers are now known with 10 teams heading into the five two-legged play-offs on November 12 and 16.

France, who could have been a major casualty if results elsewhere in the section had gone against them, instead powered their way to first place in the highly-competitive group IV which had captured the imagination of fans and mathematicians for weeks.

The permutations of who could finish where were endless and going into Wednesday’s final two games, Switzerland, Ireland, Israel and France were all in with a chance of advancing.

In the end, France’s 4-0 win over Cyprus in Paris and Switzerland’s 0-0 draw with Ireland in Dublin meant the French qualified directly for the finals and the Swiss went into the play-offs.

Zinedine Zidane opened the scoring for France. Sylvain Wiltord, Vikash Dhorasoo and Ludovic Giuly were the other scorers.

While France go through to the finals for the 12th time, Serbia & Montenegro, carved out of the old Yugoslavia, will be there for the first time after winning an emotional match 1-0 against Bosnia, another post-Yugoslavia creation.

The only goal came from Mateja Kezman after seven minutes and both sides lived on their nerves for the next 80-odd minutes until Serbia went through. That result eliminated Bosnia and meant Spain, despite beating San Marino 6-0, must take part in the play-offs for the second competition in a row after coming through the same route to reach Euro 2004.

Sweden were the third direct qualifiers on the night, sealing their place thanks to a 3-1 home win over Iceland who scored first in Stockholm.

The Swedes came back strongly to win and finish second in group VIII behind Croatia, qualifying along with Poland as the two best runners-up in the tournament.

Poland, who started the day as Group VI leaders, ended in second place after losing 1-2 to England at Old Trafford to give Sven-Goran Eriksson’s team top spot.

Turkey, surprise World Cup semi-finalists in 2002, will also attempt to qualify for next year’s finals through the play-offs after their 1-0 win in Albania ended the hopes of Greece and Denmark.

The Czech Republic also took their place in the play-offs, a 3-0 win in Finland dashing Romania’s dreams of holding on to second place in group I.

The Netherlands, who won the group with their 2-0 win in Prague on Saturday, finished the campaign unbeaten with a 0-0 home draw against Macedonia. Ronaldo scored his first international goal for over a year to help world champions Brazil beat Venezuela 3-0 in their final qualifying game on Wednesday. (Reuters)