And that is very much your lot! It’s been a blast, truly it has. Thanks for being there. Bye!
The news at 10!
Well, 9.42pm. And these games are now all over! Here are your headlines in full:
- Portugal were thumped 2-0 by Switzerland! But they didn’t have Ronaldo, and Group B looks pretty straightforward, so it’s probably non-disastrous.
- France, facing a scrap with Sweden and Holland for a single automatic qualifying berth in a nasty-looking Group A, couldn’t score against Belarus! But didn’t concede either!
- Luckily for Les Bleus neither Sweden nor Holland took advantage, drawing as they did 1-1.
- Belgium won a game despite having Roberto Martínez in charge! But it was against Cyprus!
- Two goals in the space of 70 stoppage time seconds threatened to give, and then denied, Luxembourg a point in Bulgaria! (I’ve just seen Tonev’s winner, and it was a sweet strike).
- Bosnia & Herzegovina smashed Estonia 5-0, Emir Spahic grabbing the last in stoppage time.
- Belarus have an eye-catching new kit that looks like your grandma helped to knit it
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GOAL! And another GOAL! Bulgaria 4-3 Luxembourg!
Luxembourg have somehow contrived to equalise in the last minute against Bulgaria, and still lose – Aleksandar Tonev with the even laster minute winner!
And Michy Batshuayi has missed a penalty for Belgium, seeing his weak sidefooter kept out by Cyprus’s Kostas Panayi – and for once nobody scores from the rebound!
More drama to report: Switzerland remain 2-0 up against Portugal but Granit Xhaka has been sent off for a second bookable offence.
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Disallowed goal! In the last minute of the game Bas Dost heads in a cross from the right, but the referee decides he fouled Victor Lindelöf in doing so! A very soft decision, that.
France have one more minute of stoppage time in which to score a goal.
GOAL! Bosnia & Herzegovina 4-0 Estonia (Ibisevic, 83 mins)
The night’s most emphatic victory – further Greek goals in Gibraltar notwithstanding – will be Bosnia’s, after Ibisevic thumped in the fourth against Estonia.
“Hey! Leave Charalambides alone!” yells Luke Pulfer. “Sure, they’re a tad pretentious, and ‘difficult’ listening, but I’ll not have that condescension from this organ’s football writers that as recently as four years ago were extolling the merits of Shakira’s Waka Waka.” I had nothing to do with that.When it comes to football songs I did quite like this one, though:
GOAL! Bulgaria 3-2 Luxembourg (Popov, 79 mins
The Bulgarians have turned matters around, Ivelin Popov putting them back in front with a fine 20-odd-yard free-kick.
GOAL! Cyprus 0-3 Belgium (Carrasco, 81 mins)
You’ve got to feel for Kostas Panayi. He keeps pulling off decent saves, and Belgium keep scoring from them. The latest keeps out De Bruyne’s low effort from just outside the penalty area, but the ball is immediately thumped back across goal and Carrasco turns in!
“I’m afraid I’ve not been paying attention,” writes Charles Antaki. “Are France playing tonight, and is anyone scoring or doing anything notable in that match?” They are playing, but unconvincingly: still in search of a breakthrough in Belarus, they’ve just taken off Giroud and replaced him with Kévin Gameiro.
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“Just watched the video of that King tackle,” writes Tony Waters. “Superb tackle, but one thing mystifies me: Why didn’t Robben dive? Quite extraordinary. Did he ever consider the effect on his reputation?”
GOAL! Bosnia & Herzegovina 3-0 Estonia (Medunjanin, 71 mins)
I do love the post-corner volley-thump. It’s among my very favourite goal categories. And this is a fine addition to the canon:
@Simon_Burnton Regarding M. Cosgrove's question: John Cage's 4'33"
— Felix Krull (@FelixSoKrull) September 6, 2016
Well, kind of, but also not really.
Joachim is the first Luxembourg player to score two goals in a competitive away game, apparently. And it only took him three minutes.
GOALS! Three of them! And now it's Bulgaria 2-2 Luxembourg
Aurelien Joachim scored twice in three minutes to put Luxembourg 2-1 up in Bulgaria, but then they conceded three minutes later and the score is thus 2-2.
GOAL! Sweden 1-1 Holland (Sneijder, 67 mins)
The captain grabs the equaliser! Yet another rebound. Janmaat cuts in from the right and shoots low across goal with his left foot, and the keeper does well to push it clear, only for Sneijder to latch onto the ball and stroke it into the opposite corner.
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“As you said earlier that song by a Texan group called Charalambide, the namesake of the captain of Cyprus, starts nowhere, goes nowhere, and ends up at the same place,” writes Michael Cosgrove. “Now that really takes some doing and I am at a complete loss to think of any piece of music that is as quaintly and amusingly boring as that. Can anybody help?” I for one can think of nothing that betters it.
GOAL! Cyprus 0-2 Belgium (Lukaku, 61 mins)
Um, not so ragged then. Lukaku feasts on scraps again, heading in the loose ball after the keeper pushes Yannick Carrasco’s fierce shot away from goal. He did look suspiciously – but narrowly – offside when the shot came in, mind.
Belgium are looking ragged in Cyprus, though they still lead 1-0. Fellaini has a little nibble at Pieros Sotiriou’s ankles and is booked, and the Cypriots have a shooting chance from 25 yards.
GOAL! Andorra 0-1 Latvia (Sabala, 48 mins)
Bit late on this one as well, but I’ve only just seen this. It’s a long cross from the right wing, and the goalkeeper edges forwards to prepare for a possible save only to be stuck in no man’s land as Valerijs Sabala sends his header looping over him and into an empty net.
And now Sissoko passes inside to Griezmann, who swings his left foot and completely misses the ball. Still, chances aplenty.
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And from the corner – this one is taken by Payet – Giroud heads against the bar!
France have just brought Dimitri Payet on in place of Martial, and within seconds Andrei Gorbunov makes an excellent save from a fine free kick, though it was Griezmann who struck it.
In Bern, João Mário gets into the penalty area and flings himself to the floor, somehow getting away without a booking.
France are still labouring in Belarus, where Giroud has just shot wide. According to Uefa statistics, they have had all three of the night’s shots on target, though.
If you’re not in St Jakob-Park tonight, you’ve missed out:
Halftime entertainment at Switzerland-Portugal: the stadium announcer is reading out train times.
— Brian Homewood (@brianhomewood) September 6, 2016
The games have restarted after half-time, and Portugal have made two changes at the break, bringing on João Mário and André Silva and taking off William Carvalho and Eder.
Max tells me that rather than being about a clearance, “the Ledley King reference goes back to that tackle on Arjen Robben a couple of years ago”. And what a tackle it was.
“Dzeko actually celebrated the goal by saying ‘I love deaf people’ in sign language to the camera, which is related to some of the charity work he did in the last couple of days and his promise to do something for them if he scores,” writes Mak Imamovic. “As for what Ledley King has to do with any of that, I’m as baffled as you.”
Some linguistic clarification from Andreas Broman, who tells me that “’Brytning’ could be ‘mining’ but here it means ‘clearance’”. So there you go.
“You can really tell that assistant referee Lorenzo Manganelli (currently working the touchline in the Sweden v Netherlands game) wants to be a professional footballer by the state of his hair,” writes JR. “His hairdo is even more ridiculous than any of the players. He looks like he went to the barber and said “Give me a cross between the ‘Chamakh’ and the ‘Flock of Seagulls’.” You should make an effort to get a glimpse of his head. I find it fascinating.” I will make that effort, JR.
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GOAL! Gibraltar 1-4 Greece (Torosidis, 45 mins)
I’m afraid that in all the excitement I’ve missed not one, or even two, or for that matter three, but four whole goals in Gibraltar. In my defence, three of them came in the space of 120 seconds. Liam Walker equalised for the home side in the 26th minute, and with one minute of the first half remaining it remained 1-1. But then Scott Wiseman scored an own goal in the 44th minute, Konstantinos Fortounis put Greece 3-1 up in the 45th, and Vasilios Torosidis has added a fourth in stoppage time.
You can now see the moment the Belarus kit was unveiled for the first time. Damn right they applauded. I encourage you to stay tuned for the performance of some loud music (16:53), and whatever you do don’t miss the shot of audience members clapping along after 18 minutes and 58 seconds, which sums up the enthusiasm in the room at this historic moment. If you want some close-ups of the home kit, fast forward to precisely 20 minutes in.
GOAL! Sweden 1-0 Holland (Berg, 43 mins)
Oh my! That is just insane defending from Strootman. He’s not under much pressure, with only Marcus Berg standing behind him, but instead of booting clear, or passing to anyone else, he turns into trouble, Berg steals the ball, and then the Panathinaikos player scores with a fabulous chip from the edge of the area.
It was a pretty decent hit from Rangelov – no curl involved, just pure speed. Blammo!
GOAL! Switzerland 2-0 Portugal (Mehmedi, 31 mins)
The Swiss extend their lead on the counter-attack, Admir Mehmedi taking a touch before sidefooting into the top corner from 16 yards.
Bulgaria are a goal up against Luxembourg, Dimitar Rangelov scoring with what I’m hearing was a pretty special strike.
GOAL! Bosnia & Herzegovina 2-0 Estonia
I can tell you nothing about this one except that Edin Dzeko scored it from a penalty that he himself won. Also, this chap says there was a bit of what Google Translate insists was “Ledley King-mining” involved. I must know more.
2-0. Dzeko är säker från straffpunkten efter att Klavan misslyckats med en Ledley King-brytning vid friläge. Dock misstänkt offside.
— Oskar Kiisk (@Kiisk) September 6, 2016
GOAL! Switzerland 1-0 Portugal (Embolo, 24 mins)
Another rebound. Rui Patrício faces a 22-yard free kick, heads to his left just before it’s taken, has to head back the other way when it actually is taken, and as a result instead of catching it easily he palms it straight out, where Embolo reacts first to head in.
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Here, finally, is the Belarus home shirt in full. Either it’s made of a particularly heavy fabric or Nikolai Signevich isn’t much of a leaper.
If you listen to that Charalambides song in full, you will notice that absolutely nothing happens at any stage. It just starts and then, a while later, stops.
Costas Charalambides captains Cyprus against Belgium tonight. He appears to have an avant garde musical group from Texas named after him (or a distant relative).
It’s all go in Group H. While Groups A and B have not a goal between them, all three in H have already featured one. Bosnia & Herzegovena lead Estonia 1-0 at home, and Greece are a goal up in Gibraltar.
GOAL! Cyprus 0-1 Belgium (Lukaku, 13 mins)
Belgium are given a free kick for no good reason, from which the ball is played across the edge of the area, a low shot is deflected into the keeper, who pushes it onto the bar, and Romelu Lukaku heads in the rebound.
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Thanks to Jona Steenbrink, incidentally, for tipping me off about the away shirt.
The Belarus away kit is also pretty decent – we got a first glimpse of that in their friendly against Norway last week.
Sweden v Holland is surely the game of the night, and Davy Klaassen has just missed the first clear chance, brilliantly controlling Strootman’s even more brilliant pass but then shooting straight at the goalkeeper.
For now the only one I can find is this tantalising snippet, which offers but a glimpse of the knitted-effect central band:
The new Belarus kit is an absolute stonker. I’ll find a picture for your delectation shortly.
Across Europe there are a lot of players in a lot of tunnels. Action imminent.
It’s all over, and England win 6-1. They need to win one of their last two games, away at Kazakhstan next month and at home to Bosnia & Herzegovina five days later, to be sure of qualifying.
What a debut! Congratulations to @MarcusRashford on scoring a hat-trick for @England's U21s in the 6-1 win v Norway. pic.twitter.com/9Atk7Szh6z
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) September 6, 2016
England Under-21s are the anti-England: they’re 6-1 up against Norway with four minutes to play. Lewis Baker, another member of Chelsea’s loan squad, with the latest goal.
Marcus Rashford has just completed his hat-trick on his Under-21 debut from the penalty spot, and it’s now England 5-1 Norway.
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I won’t bother you with all the line-ups, but here are the Ronaldo-free teams from St Jakob-Park in Basel:
Switzerland: Sommer; Lichtsteiner, Embolo, Seferovic, Xhaka, Behrami, Rodríguez, Dzemaili, Mehmedi, Djourou, Schär. Subs from: Bürki, Hitz, Moubandje, Elvedi, Klose, Widmer, Frei, Steffen, Fernandes, Derdiyok.
Portugal: Rui Patrício; Pepe, Guerreiro, Fonte, Moutinho, Eder, Bernado Silva, Carvalho, Nani, Cédric, Adrien Silva. Subs from: Eduardo, Marafona, Bruno Alves, Neto, André Silva, João Mário, Danilo, André André, Cancelo, Rafa Silva, Eliseu, Quaresma.
Referee: Antonio Mateu Lahoz (Spain).
The teams for Belarus v France are as follows:
Belarus: Gorbunov; Polyakov, Politevich, Korzun, Stasevich, Gordeichuk, Sivakov, Maevski, Bordachev, Signevich, Kalachev. Subs from: Gutor, Chernik, Dragun, Martynovich, Kornilenko, Rios, Volodko, Krivtes, Kislyak, Begunov, Klopotski.
France: Mandanda; Kurzawa, Varane, Pogba, Griezmann, Giroud, Martial, Kanté, Sissoko, Sidibé, Koscielny. Subs from: Aréola, Costil, Corchia, Rami, Payet, Gignac, Dembele, Matuidi, Kondogbia, Digne, Gameiro, Umtiti.
Referee: Ovidiu Hategan (Romania).
England’s Under-21s are now 4-0 up against Norway, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Marcus Rashford both scoring excellent goals in the last few minutes.
Team news is rolling in, and I can inform you that Holland have two Watford players in their matchday squad today, which is something.
Sweden: Olsen; Lustig, Lindelof, Granqvist, Rohden, Berg, Forsberg, Guidetti, Hiljemark, Wendt, Fransson. Subs from: Johnsson, Carlgren, Augustinsson, Lewicki, Thelin, Hult, Jansson, Krafth, Helander, Kujovic, Durmaz, Nyman.
Holland: Zoet; Janmaat, Bruma, Van Dijk, Blind, Strootman, Klaassen, Wijnaldum, Jansen, Sneijder, Promes. Subs from: Stekelenburg, Cillessen, Dost, Narsingh, Bazoer, De Jong, Pröpper, Berghuis, Hendriz, Van Aanholt, Willems, Veltman.
Referee: Daniele Orsato (Italy).
Final score: Wales Under-21s 1-1 Luxembourg Under-21s. And the game ends with some handbags on the pitch between the rival players. Wales go down fighting.
They don’t score from this one. Goal kick. There is half a minute to play.
Wales have their 15th corner of the night. They scored from No14.
Wales need to win if they are to keep sensible hopes of qualifying for next summer’s tournament in Poland alive. They have two minutes to score another.
England, meanwhile, have had some difficult moments but are 2-0 up against Norway in their own Under-21 encounter.
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And Wales have scored! Humiliation avoided!
Into stoppage time they go in Bangor – there’ll be five minutes of it.
Under-21 result of the night (pending): Wales Under-21s are losing 1-0 to Luxembourg at Nantporth in Bangor, with a minute plus stoppages to play. The home side hit the bar a couple of minutes back, but remain in arrears.
Hello world!
They’re not messing around in Group A. Surely the toughest of Europe’s groups gets under way with France in Belarus and with Sweden unveiling their post-Zlatan selves in Solna, where Holland will be determined to put their Euro 2016 qualifying shame behind them. Portugal, whose memories of the last international tournament are a little happier, are in Switzerland, where they have never lost (though the Swiss have a 100% record in meetings on neutral soil, triumphing both at Euro 2008 and at the 1938 World Cup). Anyway, tonight’s qualifiers in full:
Uefa World Cup qualifying Group A
Belarus v France
Bulgaria v Luxembourg
Sweden v Holland
Group B
Andorra v Latvia
Faroe Islands v Hungary
Switzerland v Portugal
Group H
Bosnia & Herzegovina v Estonia
Cyprus v Belgium
Gibraltar v Greece
There are or were also World Cup qualifiers in Asia and North and Central America tonight, but the Asian ones are all over – you’ve not missed very much, especially when it comes to Group A, where three games involving China, Iran, Syria, South Korea, Qatar and Uzbekistan finished with but a single goal between them – and the Concacaf ones are, while potentially very exciting, still several hours from starting.
There are also some friendlies, though the match between Hong Kong and Turkmenistan was cancelled because the Turkmen were apparently unable to form “a proper visiting team due to injury problem of their national team players and resignation of their coaching staff” (their match against the Philippines last Friday was similarly scrapped), which sounds intriguing. The others don’t look wildly enticing either, the best of them – between Russia and Ghana – having already finished. To complete the list of stuff we were nearly able to watch this evening but actually aren’t really, there have been a handful of Under-21 European Championship qualifiers, some of which are still ongoing and look set to provide some intriguing scorelines.
A merry evening awaits. Welcome!
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Simon will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Stuart James’s report on Wales’s comfortable start to their campaign, a 4-0 win over Moldova:
By the end of the evening it felt more like an exhibition match as the Wales supporters worked their way through their full repertoire of songs, Chris Coleman responded to their requests for a wave and Gareth Bale and his team-mates strolled to the most comfortable of victories to get their World Cup qualifying campaign off to the best possible start.
It was a night when Bale registered his 23rd and 24th international goals to move ahead of Ivor Allchurch and Trevor Ford as Wales’ outright second highest scorer – Ian Rush’s record of 28 is now firmly in his sights – and Joe Allen got his first for his country on his 32nd appearance.
Bale also set up the opening goal for Sam Vokes in a match that turned into an exercise in damage limitation for Moldova by half-time. Ranked 165th in the world and with only one victory in their last 21 matches, Moldova will be relieved the margin of defeat was not wider on an occasion that was almost like a reunion for the Wales players and supporters.
