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Turkey beat Kosovo 1-0, and Sweden beat Poland 3-2 as the winners secured the latest FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifying spot.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published on 31 March 2026<\/span>31 March 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Turkey ended a 24-year wait to qualify for the World Cup by beating Kosovo 1\u20130 in the playoff final, returning to football’s biggest stage for the first time since 2002.<\/p>\n Forward Kerem Akturkoglu scored the only goal in the 53rd minute to settle a tense contest in Pristina on Tuesday, where the hosts were hoping to reach their first World Cup.<\/p>\n 4 item list<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The Turks, ranked 25th in the world, had missed qualifying campaigns in the past two decades and were under pressure with coach Vincenzo Montella overseeing a team featuring a mix of emerging talent and experienced international players.<\/p>\n For Kosovo, who are ranked 79th and playing in front of a sell-out crowd, the defeat ended a remarkable performance that had taken them to the brink of a historic debut at a major tournament less than a decade after joining FIFA and UEFA.<\/p>\n Sweden beat Poland \u20603-2 \u2060 to book their ticket to the World Cup as Viktor Gy\u00f6ckeres scored two minutes from time \u2060 to decide a frantic qualification playoff final.<\/p>\n Anthony Elanga’s opener for Sweden was canceled out by Nikola Zalewski’s equaliser, but Gustaf Lagerbilke’s 44th-minute strike restored the hosts’ advantage and ensured they could advance heading into the break.<\/p>\n Karol Swiderski equalized for the visitors again shortly after the interval, yet Gy\u00f6ckeres took advantage of a late goalmouth \u2060\u2014 side-footing the winner.<\/p>\n The result earned Sweden a place in Group F for the 2026 World Cup alongside the Netherlands, Japan and Tunisia, their first appearance at the tournament since 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turkey beat Kosovo 1-0, and Sweden beat Poland 3-2 as the winners secured the latest FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifying spot. Published on 31 March 202631 March 2026 Turkey ended a 24-year wait to qualify for the World Cup by beating Kosovo 1\u20130 in the playoff final, returning to football’s biggest stage for the first<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2457,1369,1051,4093,2048,13728,615,674,5173,2924,5315,166],"class_list":{"0":"post-32400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-confirmed","9":"tag-cup","10":"tag-due","11":"tag-exit","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-kosovo","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-place","16":"tag-poland","17":"tag-sweden","18":"tag-turkey","19":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32402,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32400\/revisions\/32402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Gy\u00f6ckeres puts Sweden ahead of Poland<\/h2>\n