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Portugal complete perfect Euro qualifying campaign


Portugal complete perfect Euro qualifying campaign

Portugal finished their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign with a 100-percent record by beating Iceland 2-0 on Sunday (Nov 19), after Serbia booked their place at next year's finals in Germany and Romelu Lukaku scored four goals for Belgium. Bruno Fernandes and Ricardo Horta netted the goals for Roberto Martinez's Portugal, with Cristiano Ronaldo not on the scoresheet, to end with 10 wins from 10 matches in Group J. The 2016 winners will be among the favourites for the title in what could be the 38-year-old Ronaldo's last major tournament.

Slovakia finished eight points behind Portugal in the second qualifying place after a 2-1 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina in Zenica.

Luxembourg, who will head into the play-offs, were a further five points adrift after closing out an impressive group-stage showing with a 1-0 success in Leichtenstein.

Earlier Sunday, Serbia qualified for the first time as an independent nation, after four previous failures to get to the main event, with a 2-2 draw against Bulgaria. The Serbs finish second in Group G behind Hungary who snuffed out any hopes Montenegro had of progressing by beating them 3-1 in Budapest.

Lukaku scored four goals as Belgium finished with a 5-0 thrashing of Azerbaijan. Lukaku extended his record tally of international goals for Belgium to 83, with all of his goals coming in a remarkable first half in Brussels. He opened the scoring in the 17th minute by converting a Jeremy Doku cross, before Eddy Israfilov was shown a second yellow card seven minutes later to leave the Azeris with a mountain to climb.

Lukaku fired home shortly afterwards and then headed in Wout Faes' delivery to complete a hat-trick. He rounded off his scoring spree of four goals in 20 minutes before being replaced by Lois Openda at half-time.

The Belgians took their foot off the gas in the second period but Leandro Trossard added a fifth in the 90th minute from another Doku assist.

Belgium finished top of Group F, one point clear of Austria, with both having wrapped up qualification with matches to spare.

Sweden ended a miserable campaign, in which they failed to qualify for a European Championship for the first time since 1996, with a 2-0 win over Estonia in the other game in the group.

Gavi limped off with a knee injury in Spain's 3-1 victory against Georgia which secured top spot in Group A above Scotland. The 19-year-old was tackled from behind in the first half, buckling the knee that had his weight on it, before leaving the pitch in tears.

Goals from Robin Le Normand and Ferran Torres and a Luka Lochoshvili own goal helped Spain past a spirited Georgia, who drew level at 1-1 early on through Napoli star Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.

Already-qualified Scotland needed to beat Norway and hope for Spain to slip up to snatch first place, but were held to a dramatic 3-3 draw at Hampden Park.

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