1986 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)

Last updated August 15, 2025

1986 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)
Tournament details
Teams	32 (from 1 confederation)
Tournament statistics
Top scorer(s)	Preben Elkjær (8 goals)
← 1982 1990 →

UEFA European Qualifiers
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Listed below are the dates and results for the 1986 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds for the European zone (UEFA). For an overview of the qualification rounds, see the article 1986 FIFA World Cup qualification .

Contents

Format
Group play
Summary
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
Group 5
Group 6
Group 7
UEFA play-off
Inter-confederation play-offs
Goalscorers
References
External links

UEFA was allocated thirteen qualifying berths for the 1986 FIFA World Cup, and one place in a play-off, however Italy were the defending champions and qualified automatically, leaving 12.5 spots open for competition between 32 teams.

Europe's automatic qualifying berths were taken by Poland, West Germany, Portugal, England, Northern Ireland, France, Bulgaria, Hungary, Denmark, Soviet Union and Spain. Belgium and Scotland qualified through the UEFA play-off and UEFA–OFC intercontinental play-off respectively.

Format

The 32 teams were divided into 7 groups. The teams would play against each other on a home-and-away basis. The number of teams and spots for each group were as follows:

Groups 2, 3, 4 and 6 had 5 teams each. The group winners and runners-up would qualify.
Groups 1, 5 and 7 had 4 teams each. The group winners would qualify. The runners-up of Groups 1 and 5 would advance to the UEFA Play-offs, while the runner-up of Group 7 would advance to the UEFA / OFC Intercontinental Play-off. In the play-offs, the 2 teams would play against each other on a home-and-away basis, with the winner qualifying.
(Originally the runners-up of Groups 1, 5 and 7 would play against each other on a home-and-away basis. The winner of this play-off group would qualify, while the runner-up would advance to the UEFA / OFC Intercontinental Play-off.^[1] At request of among others the Dutch FA and Belgian FA this format was simplified. ^[2])

Group play

The draw for the qualifying groups took place in Zürich, Switzerland on 7 December 1983. During the draw teams were drawn from the 5 pots into the 7 groups. The seedings below were announced ten days before the draw.

Pot A	Pot B	Pot C	Pot D	Pot E
West Germany Poland France England Soviet Union Austria Spain	Northern Ireland Belgium Hungary Scotland Yugoslavia Czechoslovakia Denmark	Republic of Ireland Wales Netherlands Romania Sweden East Germany Greece	Bulgaria Portugal Switzerland Iceland Albania Turkey Cyprus	Norway Finland Malta Luxembourg

Summary

Group winners and the runners-up from the five-team groups qualified directly for the 1986 FIFA World Cup

Runners-up advanced to the play-offs

Runner-up advanced to the intercontinental play-off

Other teams were eliminated

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4	Group 5	Group 6	Group 7
Poland	West Germany	England	France	Hungary	Denmark	Spain
Belgium	Portugal	Northern Ireland	Bulgaria	Netherlands	Soviet Union	Scotland
Albania Greece	Sweden Czechoslovakia Malta	Romania Finland Turkey	East Germany Yugoslavia Luxembourg	Austria Cyprus	Switzerland Republic of Ireland Norway	Wales Iceland

Group 1

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Poland	6	3	2	1	10	6	+4	8	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		—	0–0	2–2	3–1
2	Belgium	6	3	2	1	7	3	+4	8	Advance to UEFA play-off		2–0	—	3–1	2–0
3	Albania	6	1	2	3	6	9	−3	4			0–1	2–0	—	1–1
4	Greece	6	1	2	3	5	10	−5	4			1–4	0–0	2–0	—

Source: ^{[ citation needed ]}

Group 2

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	West Germany	8	5	2	1	22	9	+13	12	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		—	0–1	2–0	2–2	6–0
2	Portugal	8	5	0	3	12	10	+2	10	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		1–2	—	1–3	2–1	3–2
3	Sweden	8	4	1	3	14	9	+5	9			2–2	0–1	—	2–0	4–0
4	Czechoslovakia	8	3	2	3	11	12	−1	8			1–5	1–0	2–1	—	4–0
5	Malta	8	0	1	7	6	25	−19	1			2–3	1–3	1–2	0–0	—

Source: ^{[ citation needed ]}

Group 3

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	England	8	4	4	0	21	2	+19	12	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		—	0–0	1–1	5–0	5–0
2	Northern Ireland	8	4	2	2	8	5	+3	10	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		0–1	—	3–2	2–1	2–0
3	Romania	8	3	3	2	12	7	+5	9			0–0	0–1	—	2–0	3–0
4	Finland	8	3	2	3	7	12	−5	8			1–1	1–0	1–1	—	1–0
5	Turkey	8	0	1	7	2	24	−22	1			0–8	0–0	1–3	1–2	—

Source: ^{[ citation needed ]}

Group 4

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	France	8	5	1	2	15	4	+11	11	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		—	1–0	2–0	2–0	6–0
2	Bulgaria	8	5	1	2	13	5	+8	11	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		2–0	—	1–0	2–1	4–0
3	East Germany	8	5	0	3	16	9	+7	10			2–0	2–1	—	2–3	3–1
4	Yugoslavia	8	3	2	3	7	8	−1	8			0–0	0–0	1–2	—	1–0
5	Luxembourg	8	0	0	8	2	27	−25	0			0–4	1–3	0–5	0–1	—

Source: ^{[ citation needed ]}

Group 5

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Hungary	6	5	0	1	12	4	+8	10	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		—	0–1	3–1	2–0
2	Netherlands	6	3	1	2	11	5	+6	7	Advance to UEFA play-off		1–2	—	1–1	7–1
3	Austria	6	3	1	2	9	8	+1	7			0–3	1–0	—	4–0
4	Cyprus	6	0	0	6	3	18	−15	0			1–2	0–1	1–2	—

Source: ^{[ citation needed ]}

Group 6

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Denmark	8	5	1	2	17	6	+11	11	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		—	4–2	0–0	3–0	1–0
2	Soviet Union	8	4	2	2	13	8	+5	10	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		1–0	—	4–0	2–0	1–0
3	Switzerland	8	2	4	2	5	10	−5	8			1–0	2–2	—	0–0	1–1
4	Republic of Ireland	8	2	2	4	5	10	−5	6			1–4	1–0	3–0	—	0–0
5	Norway	8	1	3	4	4	10	−6	5			1–5	1–1	0–1	1–0	—

Source: ^{[ citation needed ]}

Group 7

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Spain	6	4	0	2	9	8	+1	8	Qualification to 1986 FIFA World Cup		—	1–0	3–0	2–1
2	Scotland	6	3	1	2	8	4	+4	7	Advance to UEFA–OFC play-off		3–1	—	0–1	3–0
3	Wales	6	3	1	2	7	6	+1	7			3–0	1–1	—	2–1
4	Iceland	6	1	0	5	4	10	−6	2			1–2	0–1	1–0	—

Source: ^{[ citation needed ]}

UEFA play-off

16 October 1985

Belgium	1–0	Netherlands
Vercauteren 20'	Report

Constant Vanden Stock Stadium , Brussels, Belgium

Attendance: 30,764

Referee: Pietro D'Elia (Italy)

20 November 1985

Netherlands	2–1	Belgium
Houtman 60' De Wit 72'	Report	Grün 85'

De Kuip , Rotterdam, Netherlands

Attendance: 48,962^[3]

Referee: George Courtney (England)

2–2 on aggregate; Belgium won on away goals.

Inter-confederation play-offs

Team 1	Agg. Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Scotland	2–0	Australia	2–0	0–0

Goalscorers

8 goals

Preben Elkjær

6 goals

Rainer Ernst

5 goals

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

1 own goal

Nikos Pantziaras (playing against the Netherlands)
Guy Hellers (playing against Bulgaria)
Michel Valke (playing against Austria)
Frederico Rosa (playing against Malta)
Gino Iorgulescu (playing against Northern Ireland)
Andreas Ravelli (playing against Czechoslovakia)

References

↑ Limburgsch dagblad, 8 december 1983
↑ De Telegraaf, 21 mei 1984
↑ "Netherlands vs. Belgium" (JSON). UEFA.com. Union of European Football Associations. Retrieved 6 June 2022.

External links

FIFA.com Reports
RSSSF Page
Results and scorers
UEFA Qualifier results with full game box scores at Scoreshelf.com

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UEFA	First Round Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Group 6 Group 7 Wales v Scotland Play-offs
Play-offs	UEFA v OFC

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