Last two tickets in the World Cup playoffs in Qatar: Australia-Peru and Costa Rica-New Zealand

Peruvian soccer player Gianluca Lapadula. AMANDA PEROBELLI (Reuters)

The last play-offs of the Qatar World Cup are put into play this Monday and Tuesday in Al Rayyan, one of the venues of the championship that will begin on November 21 and which was initially opposed by 204 teams.

There are only four teams left in the running and two tickets to be distributed.

This Monday (8:00 p.m., Spanish peninsular time, Tdp), Australia and Peru will dispute the first and whoever wins will be framed in the group of France, Denmark and Tunisia, with their debut against the current world champion.

And on Tuesday, 24 hours later, Costa Rica and New Zealand will settle the last place (20:00, La 1), which will be that of Spain's first rival in a group completed by Germany and Japan.

There is no room for amendment: they will be duels without a second leg.

In Peru, the clock will mark seven hours less and it will be a holiday.

The Council of Ministers decided so so that the country gathers before the television or the screens that will be located in different squares of the main cities.

The Peruvians broke a 36-year abstinence in 2018 without playing a World Cup after qualifying in a two-leg playoff against New Zealand.

Since then they have been second and fourth in both Copa América.

It seems clear that the Argentine coach Ricardo Gareca, that long-range scorer who never showed himself in Europe, has raised the level of a team that, moreover, since his experience in Russia has had to face the renewal of his forward, where the veterans Guerrero and Farfán no longer count.

“We know how important this game is for our country.

Before traveling to Qatar, the Peruvian team trained for a week at the Sant Cugat High Performance Center.

And he won (1-0) in a crowded Espanyol stadium a friendly against New Zealand with a goal from Gianluca Lapadula, a forward son of Italian and Peruvian who is now the offensive reference nurtured by two talents André Carrillo and Christian Cueva.

Costa Rica, favorite to face Spain

Australia fell to the playoffs for the first time since joining the Asian Football Confederation after the 2006 World Cup, precisely to avoid the type of situations to which the qualifying format condemned teams from Oceania until now.

His football level has dropped in recent years.

They struggled to reach this last round, after leaving the United Arab Emirates behind in a zonal playoff played last week.

Only two of its players played this season in one of the five major European leagues: Mat Ryan was the second goalkeeper at Real Sociedad and midfielder Ajdin Hrustic, scorer of the winning goal against the Arabs, got used to coming off the bench in the Eintracht.

The team is still governed by the industrious Aaron Mooy, a hard-working man who made the leap from the Premier to Chinese football,

New Zealand is also in that line, but has the ability of a good specialist as a striker.

Newcastle paid 28 million euros in January for Chris Wood, who has more work with his back to the goal than a goal, but who is the indisputable reference of a selection without pedigree, with footballers from the Australian league and a few legionnaires who struggle in modest Scandinavian clubs.

Costa Rica starts as the favorite to be Spain's first rival in Qatar, but first they must pass a tough physical test: beyond the football category, the oceanic athlete has an extreme competitive gene

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