Belgium beats Kazakhstan to stay perfect in Euro qualifying
● Russia also through, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Austria almost there
With its place at the 2020 European Championship already secure, Belgium stayed perfect in qualifying yesterday with a 2-0 win over Kazakhstan in Astana.
Michy Batshuayi scored in the first half and Thomas Meunier wrapped up the win in the second, giving Belgium its eighth win from eight games in Group I.
The Belgians have scored 30 goals and conceded just one.
Russia are second in the Group, but they have assured themselves of a place in next year’s finals as no other team can reach them.
They needed a point against Cyprus to join the group winners at next year’s tournament, but they won the match 0-5.
The Russians had a perfect start taking an early lead through Denis Cherychev on 9 minutes. Magormed Ozdoev added another on 23 minutes. Their victory was assured with three other late goals through Artem Dzyuba (7), Aleksandr Golovin (89) and again Denis Cherychev (90).
The other match in Group I ended in an overwhelming 6-0 win for Scotland over bottom of the standings San Marino.
John McGinn scored a first half hat-trick with goals in the 12th, 27th and 45th minutes. The other goals were scored by Lawrence Shankland (65), Stuart Findlay (67) and Stuart
Group C remains tight, but the Netherlands and Germany both made a step forward towards qualification.
Both teams won yesterday as they opened a three-point lead over third placed Northern Ireland. They both have 15 points and the Irish have 12 with just two matches to go.
In Belarus, the Netherlands won 2-1. Georginio Wijnaldum gave them a healthy 2-0 half time lead with goals on 32 and 41 minutes. Belarus pulled one back through Stanislav Dragun nine minutes into the second half, but it was not enough for them to avoid defeat.
In Tallinn, 10-man Germany overcame home side Estonia 2-0.
The Germans had Emre Can sent off after just 14 minutes and were held goalless till the intgerval.
But Ilkay Guendogan came to their rescue early in the second half. He opened the scoring on 52 minutges and then added a second five minutes later.
Timo Werner scored the third goal on the 71st minute.
Poland and Austria are firm favourites to qualify from Group G as both won their matches yesterday.
Poland left it late to overcome a stubborn North Macedonia side, scoring goals through Frankowski (74) and Milik (80) to make sure they remain sole leaders on 19 points.
Austria beat Slovenia 1-0 thanks to a first half goal from Stefan Posch on 21 minutes.
The second placed Austrians now have 16 points, five ahead of Macedonia and Slovenia and possibly Israel who play their home match against Latvia tomorrow.