Football: Italy set new unbeaten record as Germany thump Armenia

PARIS, France -- Italy broke the world record for the longest unbeaten run in international football with a goalless draw at Switzerland on Sunday, while Germany got their World Cup qualifying campaign back on track by thrashing Armenia 6-0.

European champions Italy should have taken all three points, but Swiss goalkeeper Yann Sommer saved Jorginho's second-half penalty.

"The ball didn't want to go into the goal," Italian coach Roberto Mancini told RAI.

"We had too many chances today not to win the match... We have to be more clinical and more precise."

The draw, however, extended Mancini's side's unbeaten run to 36 matches, breaking the previous mark they shared with Brazil and Spain.

The Azzurri remain top of Group C, four points above Switzerland who have two games in hand.

Italy are bidding to banish the memories of their shock failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

The group winners automatically reach next year's finals in Qatar, with the runners-up heading into the play-offs.

The Germans brushed off the cobwebs of their underwhelming 2-0 win over Liechtenstein in Hansi Flick's first match in charge by thrashing previous leaders Armenia to go top of Group J.

Bayern Munich winger Serge Gnabry scored twice in the first 15 minutes.

Timo Werner set up Marco Reus, who was recalled by Flick, to put the result beyond doubt before netting himself to complete a dominant opening 45 minutes.

The home crowd in Stuttgart were given a fifth goal to cheer by Jonas Hofmann early in the second period, before the four-time world champions added further gloss in added time through 19-year-old debutant Karim Adeyemi.

They now lead Armenia by two points, with Romania a point further back after beating Liechtenstein 2-0.

A shock home loss to North Macedonia earlier this year had put Germany's qualification in danger.

- England cruise at Wembley -

A much-changed England labored for long periods before seeing off Andorra 4-0 in their first match at Wembley since their Euro 2020 final defeat by Italy on penalties.

Jesse Lingard, who missed out on Gareth Southgate's Euro squad, put the hosts ahead in the 18th minute, but a second goal did not arrive until substitute Harry Kane's penalty 18 minutes from time.

England, for whom Southgate made 11 changes, did enjoy a late goal spree as Lingard netted a second and Bukayo Saka marked his birthday by finding the net.

That goal brought loud cheers from the crowd at Wembley -- where Saka missed the decisive penalty in the shootout against the Italians in July.

"He (Saka) got a fabulous reception, before and during the game," Southgate told ITV. "You can see how popular he is with the rest of the team as well."

England have won all five of their matches in Group I and visit Poland, who they lead by five points, on Wednesday.

Robert Lewandowski scored twice and Adam Buksa grabbed a hat-trick as the second-placed Poles hammered San Marino 7-1.

Spain, who are in danger of not qualifying automatically, thrashed Georgia 4-0 in Badajoz.

First-half goals from Jose Gaya, Carlos Soler and Ferran Torres ensured they would bounce back from their loss to Sweden with a win.

Pablo Sarabia also netted after half-time, but although the 2010 World Cup winners move top of Group B, they are only one point ahead of Sweden who have two games in hand.

Belgium put one foot in Qatar with an impressive 3-0 victory over the Czech Republic which saw Romelu Lukaku mark his 100th cap with a goal.

The Chelsea striker has now scored 67 goals for his country and 50 in his last 50 appearances.

Eden Hazard and Alexis Saelemaekers also got on the scoresheet as Roberto Martinez's Belgium stretched six points clear of the Czechs at the top of Group E.

"I know that if I continue and my body follows, it will get better and better," said Hazard following his first international goal since 2019 after suffering several injuries.

Wales are only a single point further back, having played two fewer matches, after Gareth Bale scored a hat-trick, including an injury-time winner, in a dramatic 3-2 success over Belarus in Kazan.

Agence France-Presse

Iraqis celebrate football win against Iran as symbolic victory

Jubilant Iraqis celebrated a football win against Iran Thursday as a desperately needed morale boost for protesters who have rallied against the Baghdad government and its backers in Tehran.

The highly-anticipated match, which ended in a 2-1 victory for Iraq, was an uplifting end to a day that began with four demonstrators killed as they were hit by tear gas canisters in Baghdad.


Many of the expatriate Iraqi fans who streamed into the football stadium in the Jordanian capital Amman were dressed in black to honor the dead protesters or donned the medical masks demonstrators wear to protect them against tear gas.

In Baghdad’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the heart of the month-long grassroots movement that has claimed over 330 lives, activists watched the match on a giant screen after a day of clashes with riot police.

When Iran’s national anthem played before the match, they booed and chanted “Iran out, Baghdad will remain free” to the martial pounding of drums.

And when the Iraqi team scored their first goal at the ten-minute mark, they cheered in Amman as the cracking of fireworks echoed throughout Baghdad.


‘Clear message’

Iran and Iraq fought a 1980-1988 war and were rivals under former dictator Saddam Hussein, but the predominantly Shiite states grew close after he was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion.

More recently, however, Iraqi demonstrators have directed their ire at Iran for backing the government they want to bring down, accusing Tehran of economic and political meddling and overreach in Iraq.

Wearing the Iraqi team’s football jersey, Ahmed, a 26-year-old fan in Baghdad, said the sporting contest sent “an important message”.

It was a sentiment shared by Mustafa Abdullah, aged in his 40s and one of about 70,000 Iraqis living in Jordan, who came to the match carrying his national flag.

“Our most important objective is to send a clear message to all the Iraqi people — the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds — that we reject the interference of Iran and its agents in our country,” he said.


“Iran and its agents are the cause of the woes that swept over Iraq after the fall” of Saddam in 2003, he told AFP.

“We came not only to support our team against Iran in the stadium but also to support our fellow demonstrators in their biggest contest — their revolt against Iran and injustice in Iraq.”

‘Heroes everywhere’

The match between the two football-mad nations was to have been played in the southern port city of Basra.

But FIFA said it had assessed “the current security situation in Iraq” and informed the local federation that upcoming matches “must be played on neutral ground”.

Jordanian security forces were deployed heavily around the stadium during the match, which coincided with a separate game pitting Jordan against Australia.

Hours before the match began, thousands of Iraqis streamed into the Amman football stadium, the country’s largest, benefiting from free entrance offered to them by their country’s football association.

They brandished Iraqi flags but were barred from carrying posters or protest signs into the arena.

“We came to fulfill our duties by, first, supporting our team, and second, expressing support to our brothers who rose up against corruption and injustice in Iraq,” said Nawras al-Mashhadani, an Iraqi living in Amman.

She said the match offered a temporary respite from the “scenes of bloodshed and fire” that usually come out of her home country.

Amjad Fahed, an Iraqi in his fifties, said he wanted Iraqis to “crush Iran on the football field”, as well as back home.


After the game, Arkan Najib, a famous veteran of Iraqi football, said the win had sent “a big message to the families of the martyrs and the heroes in Tahrir Square.”

Back in Baghdad, as the crowd celebrated, even Iranian-manufactured Saipa vehicles mostly as taxis in Iraq zipped around Tahrir flying Iraqi flags, the passengers inside chanting in support of Iraq’s national team.

“They made their people and their audience happy,” said Sara, 25, about the Iraqi squad.

“The team proves that we have heroes everywhere, not just in Tahrir square.”

source: sports.inquirer.net