England, Germany win

LONDON, Oct 15: Conceding an early penalty, England scored a 3-0 win over a Luxembourg team which had lost its previous eleven games whil...

LONDON, Oct 15: Conceding an early penalty, England scored a 3-0 win over a Luxembourg team which had lost its previous eleven games while Germany won 3-1 at Moldova after letting in an early goal.

World Cup winner France also had a tough time breaking down the Andorra defence before winning 2-0 at Saint-Etienne. When the French basked in the glory of its world cup triumph, they would have expected to have beaten Andorra something like 7-0.

Beaten by Turkey on Saturday, Germany appeared headed for more trouble when it fell behind to Moldova after only six minutes at Kishinev.

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But two goals by Ulf Kirsten and one by AC Milan’s Oliver Bierhoff turned it into a 3-1 win but Eric Ribbech’s team still has three points to make up on turkey and Finland.

The Turks had a great chance to open up a big lead but were beaten 3-1 at home by the Finns and both teams have six points.

Right back Vincent Candela and Youri Djorkaeff scored the second half goals that eased the French nerves at Saint-Etienne.

Francemoves up to second in Group 4 behind Ukraine, which has a maximum nine points from three games after beating Armenia 2-0. Russia tumbled to its third loss in a row, 1-0 in Iceland, and still doesn’t have a point.

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Liverpool’s Patrik Berger fired home two free kicks and Lazio’s Pavel Nedved also hit the target as the Czech Republic, runner up at the last Europeans in 1996, romped to a 4-0 half time lead against Estonia. The Czechs triumphed 4-1 to stay top of Group 9 with a maximum nine points from three games.

Latvia stayed top of Group 2 despite a 1-0 loss at Slovenia. Greece moved up to second after a 3-0 victory over Georgia while Norway hit back to salvage a 2-2 tie after surprisingly falling two goals behind at home to Albania.

After its upset loss to Cyprus which led to the departure of long time coach Javier Clemente, Spain gained a 2-1 win over Israel under newcomer Jose Antonio Camacho to climb off the bottom of Group 6. Austria jumped to the top above Israel by crushing San Marino 4-1.

Twogoals by Joao Pinto sparked Portugal to a 3-0 win at Slovakia to end the home team’s perfect start to the Group 7 campaign and move his team up to second behind Romania, which was held to a 1-1 tie by Hungary in Budapest.

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Ireland crushed Malta 5-0 with two goals from 18-year-old striker Robbie Keane, who became the youngest Irish scorer since John Giles in 1959.

The Irish top the group on goal difference from world cup semifinalist Croatia who came from behind to beat Macedonia 3-2.