Tuesday, September 07, 2021
France can still win
Netherlands roll over Turkey
France can still win, the Netherlands deal with Turkey with their new coach Louis van Gaal and Portugal wins even without Cristiano Ronaldo: The favorites are not naked in Tuesday’s World Cup qualification and are on course for Qatar 2022.
For France the 2-0 (1-0) against the closest pursuers Finland was a relief. After the 1-0 at the start of the European Championship against Germany, the world champion had not won five times in a row. In Lyon, Antoine Griezmann ended the dry spell with a brace (25/53).
With 41 goals for France, Griezmann drew level with Michel Platini and only has Thierry Henry (51) and Olivier Giroud (46) in front of him. In the table, the French are now clearly ahead of Finland and Ukraine (both 5) with twelve points – but the Finns have played two games less.
As if in a frenzy, the Dutch national team, once again trained by van Gaal, presented themselves in a 6-1 (3-0) against Turkey. Thanks to the triple goalscorer Memphis Depay and a very strong ex-Bremer Davy Klaassen, Oranje topped the table with 13 points.
Behind the Dutch, who did not qualify for the World Cup in Russia in 2018 and suffered a sensitive 4-2 defeat in the first leg against the Turks, Norway is level on points after a 5-1 (3-1) against Gibraltar. Turkey (11) fell back to third place.
Austria can almost bury World Cup dreams
With the Norwegians, star striker Erling Haaland was unstoppable. The striker scored three times in Oslo (27./39./90.+1) – it was his number ten and eleven goals in only the 15th international match.
Meanwhile, Portugal continued their winning streak in qualifying even without record scorer Ronaldo. In Azerbaijan, the European champions from 2016 prevailed 3-0 (2-0) and, thanks to their third success in a row, are at the top of Group A with 13 points ahead of Serbia (1-1 in Ireland).
RB Leipzig striker Andre Silva (31st) increased shortly after the lead by Bernardo Silva (26th). Raphael Guerreiro from Borussia Dortmund was also in the starting line-up of national coach Fernando Santos in Baku. In the second half, Diogo Jota (75th) from Liverpool FC followed suit. The yellow-banned Ronaldo had left the national team prematurely.
Austria lost in Group F 0: 1 (0: 0) against Scotland and can almost bury their World Cup dreams. The deficit on leaders Denmark (5-0 against Israel) is eleven points after six games, the Scots are four points away.
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