MUNICH – France can still win, Netherlands struck a deal with Turkey with their new coach Louis van Gaal and Portugal wins even without Cristiano Ronaldo: The favorites showed no weakness in Tuesday’s World Cup qualifiers and Qatar’s 2022 Stay on course.
A 2–0 (1–0) respite was a respite for France against closest chasers Finland. After 1–0 at the start of the European Championship against Germany, the world champions had not won five times in a row. At Lyon, Antoine Griezmann ended a dry spell with a brace (25/53).
Antoine Griezmann draws with Platini
With 41 goals for France, Griezmann tied with Michel Platini and only Thierry Henri (51) and Olivier Giroud (46). In the table, the French are now clearly ahead of Finland and Ukraine (both 5) on twelve points – but the Finns have played two games less.
As if in a frenzy, the Dutch national team coached once again by van Gaal presented themselves in a 6–1 (3–0) draw against Turkey. Thanks to triple goalscorer Memphis Depay and a very strong former Bremer Davy Klaasen, Oranje top the table with 13 points.
Behind the Dutch, who did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and suffered a sensitive 4–2 defeat in the first leg against the Turks, Norway was level on points after 5–1 (3–1) against Gibraltar. is on. Turkey (11) fell to third place.
With the Norwegian, star striker Erling Haaland was unstoppable. The striker scored three times in Oslo (27./39./90.+1) – this was only his number ten and eleven goals in his 15th international.
Meanwhile, Portugal continued their winning streak in qualifying without record scorer Ronaldo. In Azerbaijan, the 2016 European champions won 3–0 (2–0) and thanks to their third successive success, top Group A with 13 points ahead of Serbia (1–1 in Ireland).
Austria could almost suppress World Cup dreams
RB Leipzig striker Andre Silva (31st) advanced soon after Bernardo Silva (26th) took the lead. Borussia Dortmund’s Rafael Guerreiro was also in the starting line-up of national coach Fernando Santos in Baku. In the second half, Diogo Jota (75th) of Liverpool FC followed. The yellow-banned Ronaldo left the national team prematurely.
Austria lost against Scotland in Group F 0:1 (0:0) and could almost bury their World Cup dreams. The loss to the leaders of Denmark (5–0 against Israel) is eleven points after six matches, with the Scots four points away.
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