Nicolas Anelka scored a lucky goal midway through the second half Saturday to give France a 1-0 playoff win at Ireland and a good chance of reaching next year's World Cup. The striker capped his side's second-half improvement with a shot from the edge of the area that hit defender Sean St. Ledger and spun beyond goalkeeper Shay Given. In Lisbon, a header by Bruno Alves gave Portugal a 1-0 win over Bosnia in their World Cup playoff first leg. The second leg is in Zenica Wednesday. France had an early goal by Andre-Pierre Gignac disallowed for offside but Ireland created chances. Robbie Keane was blocked by the goalkeeper at close range, Liam Lawrence had a shot deflected past the post and Keith Andrews shot wide. Elsewhere, unheralded Slovenia and Ukraine took tentative steps closer to the Finals. Despite losing 2-1 to Russia in Moscow, Nejc Pecnik's goal two minutes from time gave Slovenia hope that it can make sure of a second World Cup appearance in Wednesday's return leg of their qualifying playoff. Ukraine, which was quarter-finalist in 2006, will also be confident of achieving back-to-back World Cup spots, after holding 2004 European champion Greece to a 0-0 draw in Athens. In Moscow, Everton midfielder Diniyar Bilyaletdinov scored twice for Guus Hiddink's Russian side before Pecnik's late lifeline. Bilyaletdinov opened the scoring in the 40th minute after being set up by Tottenham striker Roman Pavlyuchenko on the edge of the box. Spurred on by a capacity 70,000 home crowd, Bilyaletdinov made it 2-0 in the 51st minute. But Russia, under the watchful gaze of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, was stunned in the 88th minute when Pecnik headed home after goalkeeper Igor Akinfeyev could only parry Robert Koren's powerful shot. Greece and Ukraine played out a 0-0 stalemate at Athens Olympic Stadium watched by 50,000 spectators with Greek striker Giorgos Samaras and Ukraine's Taras Mikhalik wasting second-half chances. Brazil beats England Brazil continued its dominance over England with a 1-0 friendly win in Doha Saturday South Africa's troubles persisted with a 0-0 draw at home to Japan. Spain added to Diego Maradona's worries by beating his Argentina side 2-1 thanks to two Xabi Alonso goals, including a late penalty. In other games, Slovakia beat the United States 1-0 while the Denmark-South Korea and Italy-Netherlands matches ended in goalless stalemates.
