Czechs win 2-1 as England lose 1st qualifier in 10 years
England has lost a qualifying game for the World Cup or European Championship for the first time in 10 years.
Substitute Zdenek Ondrasek scored his first international goal to rally the Czech Republic to a 2-1 win over England in a Euro 2020 qualifier on Friday.
Captain Harry Kane put England ahead in the fifth minute from the penalty spot.
A victory would have secured a spot for England at the finals with three games left.
Jakub Brabec equalized for the Czechs four minutes after Kane's goal and Ondrasek scored the winner five minutes from time with a low right-footed shot from inside the area.
England and the Czech Republic top Group A with 12 points but England has one game in hand.
Police detain 31 fans ahead of Czech-England qualifier
Police detained 31 soccer fans before the 2020 European Championship qualifier between host Czech Republic and England in the Czech capital on Friday.
Police spokesman Jan Danek said fans of both teams were among those detained after police intervened following incidents in two bars in Prague.
Czech and English fans attacked each other in one bar, while fans were throwing glasses and attacked police in the other, Danek said.
Police said 14 of the 31 are foreigners. More than 3,000 England fans had been expected to travel to Prague for Friday night's game at the Slavia Prague stadium.
Portugal and Ukraine close in on Euro 2020 with home wins
European champions Portugal and highflying Ukraine edged closer to reaching next year’s European Championship with comfortable home wins in qualifying Group B on Friday.
Ukraine sank Lithuania 2-0 to stay top of the group on 16 points from six games, followed by Portugal who are on 11 points from five matches after beating Luxembourg 3-0 with Cristiano Ronaldo among the scorers.
Third-placed Serbia have seven from five, Luxembourg have four points from six games and Lithuania are bottom with one point from six matches.
The Portuguese, who visit Ukraine on Monday, missed a string of chances to win by a bigger margin. Top scorer Ronaldo had been hoping to get two strikes to reach the milestone of 700 goals at club and international level.
Ronaldo’s one goal, the second for Portugal on the night, demonstrated his class when a defensive blunder allowed the Juventus forward to race clear and beat goalkeeper Anthony Moris with a delightful lob from the edge of the penalty area.
Moris produced a barrage of fine saves to keep the score respectable after Bernardo Silva pounced on a loose ball and steered it past two defenders on the line to fire the home side ahead in the 16th minute.
Poor finishing coupled with Moris’s heroics kept Portugal at bay before Ronaldo netted his 94th international goal to reach the 699 mark at senior level and Goncalo Guedes sealed the win with an 89th-minute effort.
Ukraine, who will qualify for Euro 2020 if they avoid defeat against Portugal on Monday, overpowered Lithuania thanks to a superb brace from Ruslan Malinovskiy.
The midfielder broke the deadlock with a crisp left-footed shot after a one-two with Junior Moraes and made it 2-0 with a brilliant free kick around the wall into the far corner.
In Monday’s other fixture, Serbia must win in Lithuania to retain any realistic hopes of qualifying.
Giroud strike enough for France in Iceland
Olivier Giroud was France's hero as he scored the FIFA World Cup winners' goal in the 1-0 triumph in Iceland on Friday that keeps the world champions on course to reach UEFA EURO 2020.
No team had won in Iceland for six years, so Didier Deschamps' men — who were without the injured Kylian Mbappé, Paul Pogba and Hugo Lloris — knew their task would be a tough one. It was made all the more difficult as Lucas Hernandez was not deemed fit enough to start and Ngolo Kanté's injury in the warm-up required a further reshuffle.
Ex-Toulouse FC man Moussa Sissoko started for the visitors, but the late change was evened out when Iceland forward Johan Gudmundsson was forced off with injury with barely 15 minutes on the clock.
France dominated possession, but it was not until just before half-time they managed to trouble Hannes Halldorsson in the home goal even if he had little difficulty in fielding Antoine Griezmann's miscued shot (42').
Halldorsson beat out a long-range shot from the Barcelona forward soon after the interval (50') before Griezmann sent a shot across the face of the home goal (54') by means of a warning of what was to come.
Normally Griezmann would have taken the penalty himself after he had been fouled by Ari Skulason (64'), but the man who had missed his last two international spot-kicks had not sufficiently recovered from the challenge so Giroud fired home instead (66').