Ronaldo’s late goals save Portugal
Brazil have beaten 2018 World Cup hosts Russia 3-0 in one of a batch of international friendlies, in which reigning champions Germany drew with 2010 winners Spain and Cristiano Ronaldo saved Portugal with two injury-time goals.
Brazil used a 13-minute spurt in the second half in the Russian capital at the weekend.
Miranda opened the scoring in the 53rd minute for Brazil, with Philippe Coutinho converting a penalty on 62 minutes and Paulinho making it 3-0 in the 66th minute.
Germany also played in a showdown of big names, drawing 1-1 at home against Spain.
The Spanish didn’t waste much time in jumping ahead, with Andres Iniesta feeding a worldclass ball to Rodrigo Moreno, who one-timed it past German keeper Marc Andre ter Stegen.
The Germans evened the game 1-1 in the 35th minute with Thomas Mueller’s blast from long range.
The draw extended Germany’s unbeaten streak to 22 games while Spain’s similar stretch moved to 17 matches.
Portugal looked as if they would suffer a home loss to Egypt but Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo scored two goals in injury time for a 2-1 victory.
Two-time world champs Argentina needed some time but picked up a 2-0 victory over World Cup absentees Italy in Manchester.
Jesse Lingard’s goal in the 59th minute gave England a 1-0 win over the Netherlands, the first time the English could beat the Dutch since Euro 1996.
The Netherlands are still smarting from missing out on this year’s finals in Russia after a second straight failure to qualify for a major championship.
France would like to forget their friendly as they blew a twogoal lead at home in losing 3-2 against Colombia.
Australia also gave up a lead as they went up 1-0 in the 19th minute through Irvine Jackson but Ola Kamara scored a hat-trick to help Norway to a 4-1 victory.
Nigeria were victorious in a showdown of World Cup teams 1-0 over Poland.
Another match-up of teams heading to Russia saw Tunisia down Iran 1-0 on an own goal by Milad Mohammadi in the 71st minute.
Costa Rica and Switzerland for their part picked up 1-0 victories over non-World Cup teams, beating Scotland and Greece, respectively.
Uruguay beat the Czech Republic 2-0 in China from Luis Suarez’ penalty and Edison Cavani’s bicycle kick in the first half.
Japan needed a goal by Shoya Nakajima in the fifth minute of stoppage time to salvage a 1-1 home draw against Mali.
Senegal and Uzbekistan also drew 1-1, the same result for Saudi Arabia and Ukraine.
The next group of international friendlies will take place on Wednesday.