Ukraine make World Cup play-offs

Ukraine are still in the hunt for a World Cup place after securing a play-off berth with a 6-0 drubbing of Andorra on Wednesday.

The 2006 World Cup quarter-finalists go through to the November play-offs as runners-up in European zone Group 6 behind automatically qualified England.

Ukraine’s win in Andorra pushed them up to 21 points to deny Croatia who, despite beating Kazakhstan 2-1 in Astana in their last qualifier, missed out by taking third in the group on 20 points.

Ukraine, who beat England 1-0 on Saturday, cruised to victory with Andrei Shevchenko, Oleg Gusev and an Ildefons Lima-own goal putting them comfortably in command before Yaroslav Rakitskyy, Yevgen Seleznov and Andriy Yarmolenko completed the rout in the last ten minutes.

As Alexei Mikhailichenko’s side join the likes of Russia, the Republic of Ireland and France in the play-offs, Croatia are due for a change of manager with coach Slaven Bilic widely expected to stand down.