BELGRADE (Reuters) - Belgium became the first European champions to qualify for the Euro 2020 finals on Thursday with a crushing 9-0 home win over San Marino in the seventh round of Group 9 qualifying.
The rest of the day's matches saw Russia win 4-0 at home to Scotland and Cyprus 2-1 at home to Kazakhstan.
The Belgian team continued to fly in the lead, after increasing the tally to 21 points, achieving the full mark so far, after winning all seven games played in the group, three points ahead of the nearest rivals Russia, which is very close to the finals.
Cyprus finished third with 10 points, while Kazakhstan were in fourth place with seven points, one point ahead of fifth-placed Scotland. San Marino remained bottom of the table with no points.
Romelu Lukaku (28, 41), Nasser Al Shazli (31), Christian Broly of San Marino (35), Toby Alderfield (43), Yuri Telemance (45), Christian Bentiecki (79) and Yari Vershairen (84) Penalty, Timothy and Castaney (90).
The Netherlands boosted their hopes of qualifying for Euro 2020 after a dramatic last-gasp 3-1 win over Northern Ireland in Group C, which also saw Belarus draw with Estonia.
The situation in the group was very volatile, with Germany leading the way with 12 points, with a goal difference against closest rivals Netherlands and Northern Ireland in second and third place respectively with the same score of points, while Belarus finished fourth with four points, and Estonia remained bottom of the standings with one point. .
Josh Magnis scored the first goal for Ireland in the 75th minute, before the Dutch team rose up in the final minutes, with Memphis Debay equalizing (81), before Luc De Jong added the second goal in the first minute of stoppage time.
Debay scored again to score the Netherlands' third goal and his second in the third minute of wasted time.
Croatia strengthened their lead in Group E with a 3-0 win at home to Hungary. In another match in the same group, Slovakia drew 1-1 with Wales.
The Croatian team has 13 points at the top of Group E, while Slovakia finished second with 10 points.The Hungarian team froze at nine points in third place, and the Welsh team in fourth place (penultimate) with seven points.
In the ninth match, Robert Lewandowski led Poland to a 3-0 win over Latvia in the seventh round of qualifying, which saw Austria beat Israel 3-1 and Macedonia beat Slovenia 2-1.
In the first game, Lewandowski scored three goals (9, 13 and 76). The Polish team has 16 points at the top of the group, while the Latvians remain without points in the last place of the group.