France fumble at crunch tie
Paris, June 10: France complicated their task of ensuring automatic qualification to next year’s World Cup in Russia after falling to a dramatic 2-1 defeat to Sweden in Stockholm on Saturday.
France had pulled ahead through Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud after 37 minutes, but the Scandinavians levelled before the break thanks to Jimmy Durmaz (43).
Sweden snatched victory with an Ola Toivonen goal from the half-way line in extra time after a poor clearance from France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
The freak goal sent the ranks of yellow-clad fans in Stockholm into a wild frenzy, with four games to go, it sent Sweden top of Group A, level 13 points with France.
Swiss keep Portugal at bay
In Group B, Switzerland remain top after beating the Faroe Islands 2-0, thanks to their stars Granit Shaka (36) and Xerdan Shaqiri (59), and are three points ahead of Portugal, the reigning European champions, who beat Latvia thanks to another Ronaldo goal scoring display.
In keeping with his great season finale, the Real Madrid star was decisive with two goals (41 and 63) and an assist for André Silva to score the third (67). — AFP Results: Group A: Netherlands 5 (Robben 21, Sneijder 34, Wijnaldum 62, Promes 70, Janssen (84-pen) Luxembourg 0; Belarus 2 (Sivakov 33-pen, Savitsky 80) Bulgaria 1 (Kostadinov 90+1); Sweden 2 (Durmaz 43, Toivonen 90+3) France 1 (Giroud 37) Group B: Faroe Islands 0 Switzerland 2 (G. Xhaka 36, Shaqiri 59); Andorra 1 (Rebes 26) Hungary 0; Latvia 0 Portugal 3 (Ronaldo, 41, 63, A. Silva 67): Bosnia and Herzegovina 0 Greece 0: Estonia 0 Belgium 2 (Mertens 31, Chadli 86); Gibraltar 1 (Hernandez 30) Cyprus 2 (Chipolina 10-o.g., Sotiriou 87).