World Cup qualification
Late ecstasy: Slovakia shocks Northern Ireland in added time
Updated 11/14/2025 – 10:53 p.mReading time: 1 min.
With a home win against Northern Ireland, Slovakia was able to move level on points with Germany. But it didn’t look like it for long – until injury time.
Late ecstasy in Bratislava: Slovakia defeated Northern Ireland 1-0 in a hard-fought World Cup qualifying game. The decisive goal came in stoppage time. Tomáš Bobček scored from a corner from László Bénes (90+1). The Northern Irish then threw everything forward, but had no success. In the ninth minute of added time, central defender Dan Ballard even saw a yellow-red card.
Slovakia had previously scored two goals, both of which were disallowed. Firstly, Milan Škriniar was offside when he scored in the 55th minute, and secondly, eleven minutes later, David Strelec touched the ball with his hand before it hit the net.
Slovakia can still win the group with a win on Monday in the duel against Germany. A draw would leave us with second place, which would mean the playoffs as Germany has the better goal difference.
Even if they lost, second place would no longer be taken away from the Slovaks, which means that Northern Ireland missed their last chance for a World Cup ticket due to their defeat this Friday.