Slovenia will appear in the World Cup finals for the first time next year after holding Romania in Bucharest last night to complete a surprise aggregate play-off win.

They withstood fierce late pressure from Gheorghe Hagi's Romanians, with Adrian Ilie seeing a shot charged down by a team-mate and a penalty appeal in the dying seconds being rejected.

Slovenia took the lead through Mladen Rudonja in the 57th minute, with Cosmin Contra equalising eight minutes later.

Following their 2-1 win in Ljubljana on Saturday, the trip to Bucharest offered the Slovenians - without Benfica striker Zlatko Zahovic - a genuine chance of glory.

Zahovic had to pull out of the first match through injury, but that seemed to stiffen the resolve of the Slovenians who featured and impressed in their first major championships at Euro 2000.

The country itself is just 10 years old, having broken away from Yugoslavia in 1991.

Yet they restricted the Romanians to few chances in the first half and then stunned the crowd in the Romanian capital with Rudonja's opener.

Following a raid on the left, Rudonja bore down on Romanian goalkeeper Bogdan Lobont and calmly lofted the ball into the far right corner for his first international goal on his 53rd appearance.

The strike looked to have killed the tie until Contra's cracker. The right-back, signed by AC Milan from Alaves during the summer, collected the ball 30 yards from goal and rifled a crisp shot across to the left corner.

A scramble in the box saw Romania hit the bar and Ilie swept the ball wide with their final chance. Krug waved away a late desperate appeal for a penalty, and seconds later blew the final whistle to disappoint the home fans and kick-start the celebrations in Slovenia.

ROMANIA: Lobont, Chivu, Guioane, Popescu, Contra, Mutu, Catalin Munteanu, Miu, Sabau, Ilie, Niculae. Goal: Contra 65.

SLOVENIA: Simeunovic, Milinovic, Galic, Vugdalic, Gajser, Pavlin, Ceh, Novak, Acimovic, Osterc, Rudonja. Goal: Rudonja 57.

Referee: Hellmut Krug (Germany).