Paris (AFP)

Portugal will have had to wait for the last day but the defending champion won his Euro-2020 ticket after his success in Luxembourg (2-0) on Sunday, England, already qualified, concluded their playoffs with a win at Kosovo (4-0).

A laser strike from midfielder Sporting Bruno Fernandes (39th), well served by Bernardo Silva, and a fox goal from Cristiano Ronaldo (86th), necessarily, allowed the Seleção to qualify an 11th time in a row for a competition major (Euro and World).

"A qualification harder than expected," said coach Fernando Santos.

"It was not an extraordinary match," said midfielder Danilo. "But we played enough to win, we did not get the first place in the group but we qualified, which was our goal."

Taking a ball badly repulsed by the Luxembourg goalkeeper, the five-time Ballon d'Or scored his 99th goal with Portugal in 164 caps.

Already the author of a hat-trick on Thursday against Lithuania, CR7, nicely approaches Iran's Ali Daei's world record (109 goals) but will have to wait until March - he will be 35 years old - to reach the symbolic mark of 100 .

A week after his controversial replacement with Juventus because of a "problem knee" according to his coach Maurizio Sarri, the star striker, permanently chasing the records, played the entire match.

His ticket for the Euro already in his pocket and the 1st place of his group insured, England did not relax in Kosovo (4-0).

Top scorer in the playoffs, his star Harry Kane scored his 12th goal (79th) of the qualifying campaign. A strike from near pure number 9, placed at the right place, at the right moment to take over a diverted center.

City striker Raheem Sterling, back with the "Three Lions" after being sidelined against Montenegro because of his altercation with Liverpool defender Joe Gomez, delivered an "assist" for Marcus Rashford (83rd). ).

And midfielder Mason Mount, 20, and revelation of Frank Lampard's Chelsea bottle-feeding class, scored his first goal in the national team (90th + 1), less than 20 minutes into the game for his sixth selection.

In the evening, the champions of the French world, without their nugget Kylian Mbappé, ill and absent from the starting lineup, have the opportunity to make sure also the first place of their group in Albania.

© 2019 AFP