World Cup woes

Britain Football Soccer - Rangers v Celtic - Scottish Premiership - Ibrox Stadium - 31/12/16 Celtic's Mikael Lustig, Craig Gordon and team mates applaud the fans after the match Reuters / Russell Cheyne Livepic EDITORIAL USE ONLY. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or "live" services. Online in-match use limited to 45 images, no video emulation. No use in betting, games or single club/league/player publications. Please contact your account representative for further details.

There wasn’t much joy for Celtic’s international contingent over the weekend with only Mikael Lustig making progress towards next summer’s World Cup Finals in Russia.

The defender played the full 90 minutes as Sweden won 4-0 at home to Belarus.

The win lifts the Swede’s into second place in Group A ahead of Bulgaria who enjoyed a surprise 2-0 win at home to Holland, ex-Celt Alexandar Tonev was in the Bulgarian side.

Nir Bitton had to settle for a place on the bench as Spain handed out a 4-1 lesson to Israel, it looks like Israel can forget about reaching Russia with Spain and Italy tied at the top of Group G, four points ahead of Israel.

Further afield Emilio Izaguirre was on the wrong end of a 6-0 hammering as the USA ran all over Honduras, with the score at 3-0 Izaguirre was substituted at half-time.

Cristian Gamboa got 90 minutes as Costa Rica lost 2-0 in Mexico with Honduras hosting Costa Rica on Tuesday with just four points splitting the six teams in the group with the top three qualifying and the fourth placed side going into a play-off.

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