There is no suspense about the postponement of the top three in Western Europe, and there are actually only 3 seats left in the European region.

Written by Han Bing On November 15th, the penultimate round of the European group stage of the World Cup preliminaries was completed. The Belgian team, which lacks Lukaku and De Bruyne, was held to an away draw by Kazakhstan, which is 107th behind the world rankings. However, in the last round of the European Red Devils' home game against Liechtenstein, which has lost seven consecutive games, they have actually qualified.

Also qualifying are Spain and Switzerland: After Spain defeated Georgia 4-0 in an away game, they were 3 points ahead of Turkey, with a goal difference of 14. In the final round of the home game, they directly faced Turkey, and needed a net loss of 8 goals to qualify directly. The Swiss team won 4-1 at home in this round, putting Sweden on the pillar of shame again. In the last round of away games against Kosovo, Switzerland, which had an 11-goal difference lead, also had to lose 6 goals to fall into second place. Therefore, Türkiye, Kosovo, like Italy (need to beat Norway by 9 goals), have only a mathematical possibility of a comeback.

The Belgian team lost 4 points in the sprint stage due to the absence of Lukaku and De Bruyne in the last three rounds of qualifying. In the home game against North Macedonia in October, Lukaku was injured and he failed to score a goal in 25 shots. In the away game against Kazakhstan in November, the core organizer De Bruyne was missing again. Belgium won 6-0 at home in the first round. De Bruyne and Doku both shot 2 times and passed 1 pass, and shot as many as 35 times in the game.

But in Astana away game, Belgium fell behind in the first 9 minutes. The Belgian team shot 12 out of 20 times and only scored 1 goal. Kazakhstan goalkeeper Sapayev made 8 saves to save 1 point, allowing the European Red Devils to postpone their qualifying for only 3 days. Fortunately, Belgium faced the weakest team Liechtenstein in the final game. This small country team had lost seven games in a row, scoring 0-24 goals. Belgium's victory at home was just a formality.

Despite the lack of many high-priced main players such as Yamal, Pedri, Nico Williams, Garvey, Huizen, Balde, etc., the Spanish team still used a strong enough rotation to sweep Georgia led by Kvalac Helia 4-0 away from home. Spain already took a 3-goal lead in just 34 minutes of the game. Oyarzabal, who played as a guest center, had 2 shots and 1 pass. Ferran Torres and Suvimendi also scored. The Spanish team has scored in 48 consecutive World Cup qualifying games since 2005. And they were unbeaten in 30 consecutive official games (25 wins and 5 draws), breaking the team's record (29 games), second only to Italy (31 games), Senegal (36 games) and Morocco (38 games).

The Spanish team, which has won 5 games and conceded 19-0, will face second-ranked Turkey in Seville three days later. It will have the best record of complete victory and zero shutout in the team's qualifying competition. The Spanish team has qualified for the qualifiers three times before, namely in 1934 (2 consecutive wins), 2010 (10 consecutive wins) World Cup qualifiers and 2012 European Cup qualifiers (8 consecutive wins), but has never qualified without a clean sheet. The minimum number of goals conceded in a single qualifier before was 1 goal, which occurred in the 1934 and 1978 World Cup qualifiers. The goal of the Matador Corps is naturally not only to qualify, but to create a new record as the king of qualifiers.

There are three suspense points left for the direct qualifying spots in the European zone of the World Cup preliminaries, and they are all life-or-death battles between the top two in the group in the final round.

The Danish team in Group C suffered a big upset at home in this round. It was tied by Belarus, which was 83rd behind the world rankings. It was originally 3 points ahead of Scotland and had a goal difference of 8 more to "qualify". Scotland, which was only 1 point behind in the final round, still had home field advantage. A win would lead to a direct reversal. Qualifying; Germany and Slovakia in Group A have 12 points together. Although Germany can qualify with a draw at home in the final round, they did not dare to be careless after losing 0-2 to their opponents in the first round; Austria, which is 2 points ahead of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Group H, also has a home field advantage in the final round, but there is also the possibility of losing and missing out.

In addition to the 12 direct qualifying spots in the European region, the 16 play-off spots are also mostly confirmed. Among the 12 second-placed teams in the group, 6 teams from Kosovo, Turkey, Poland, Italy, Albania, and the Czech Republic are confirmed to qualify for the play-offs. The other 6 places are Group A (Germany/Slovakia), Group C (Denmark/Scotland), and Group H (Austria/Bosnia and Herzegovina). The three teams that failed to qualify directly in the final round enter the play-offs. The final rounds of Group D (Iceland/Ukraine) and Group F (Hungary/Ireland) are the second life-or-death battles in the group to determine 2 places. In the final round of Group J, Wales faced North Macedonia at home. Both teams have confirmed qualifications for the play-offs. The only difference is whether they are second in the group or qualified in the UEFA Nations League.

Romania, Sweden and Northern Ireland have been confirmed for the four UEFA Nations League qualifying places. Between Wales and North Macedonia, the third place in the group will get the fourth place.