While Portugal and Poland sealed their pass to the Qatar 2022 World Cup, by beating North Macedonia and Sweden, respectively, the rest of the European teams dedicated the day to a large number of friendlies in which France scored goals against South Africa and Spain to Iceland by 5-0 and the tables in the classic Netherlands-Germany (1-1).
In addition, Belgium got rid of Burkina Faso (2-0) and England of the Ivory Coast (3-0), while Italy, still shocked by being left out of the universal event after losing to the Normandy team, beat Turkey at home (2-3).
Mbappe opened the account at the Pierre Mauroy with a spectacular shot and Olivier Giroud once again took advantage of Karim Benzema’s absence to extend his scoring account with France. He scored his 48th goal and is only three behind Thierry Henry, the historic striker. In the last quarter of an hour Mbappe, from a penalty, completed his double and Wissam Ben Yedder and Matteo Guendouzi closed the account.
Spain, with a practically new eleven compared to the victory in the previous friendly against Albania, got rid of a rocky team like Iceland in Riazor (La Coruña) with the largest result given in the clashes between the two teams. Two doubles from Álvaro Morata and Pablo Sarabia and a goal from Yeremy Pino put an end to the resistance of the Nordic team and relaunched the morale of Luis Enrique Martínez’s team, who took the opportunity to give minutes to all those summoned in this ‘window’.
Thomas Muller put Germany ahead at the Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam just before half-time, but the ‘oranje’ did not give up, put pressure on and found the prize in Steven Bergwijn’s equalizer.
Roberto Martínez, coach of Belgium, another of the great contenders at Qatar 2022, also took the opportunity to test at Lotto Park against Burkina Faso. Hans Vanaken, Leandro Trossard and Christian Benteke made it 3-0.
By the same result, England beat the Ivory Coast at Wembley, although the African team was harmed by the expulsion of Serge Aurier, a Villarreal player, five minutes before the break. Ollie Watkins had opened the scoring after half an hour. Raheem Sterling extended the count just before intermission and right at the end Tyrone Mings closed the count.
Italy, even with the tremendous disappointment of his second consecutive absence from a World Cup, recomposed himself in a certain way in Konya against Turkey (2-3), against which he had to overcome the early goal of Cengiz Under. Bryan Cristante and a brace from Giacomo Raspadori reversed the situation for the ‘azzurra’ against an opponent who intrigued at the end with a goal from Serdar Dursun.
Norway was uncovered in Oslo against Armenia. 9-0 he endorsed the team led by the Spanish Joaquín Caparrós with a double by Erling Haland, another by his substitute, Alexander Sorloth, and a triple by Joshua King.
– OTHER RESULTS
Azerbaijan 0 – Latvia 1
Croatia 2 – Bulgaria 1
Faroe Islands 1 – Liechtenstein 0
Albania 0 – Georgia 0
Belarus 1 – Bahrain 0
Denmark 3 – Serbia 0
Finland 0 – Slovakia 2
Switzerland 1 – Kosovo 1
Malta 2 – Kuwait 0
Norway 9 – Armenia 0
Qatar 0 – Slovenia 0
Israel 2 – Romania 2
Austria 2 – Scotland 2
Belgium 3 – Burkina Faso 0
Bosnia H. 1 – Luxembourg 0.
