Internationals: Payet scores as France beat Bulgaria

Sport360 staff 03:13 08/10/2016
Eden Hazard, Kevin Gameiro, Cristiano Ronaldo, Quincy Promes and Romelu Lukaku were among the goals.

France coach Didier Deschamps was pleased with his side’s recovery after coming from behind to beat Bulgaria 4-1 in Paris on Friday.

Kevin Gameiro struck twice while Dimitri Payet and Antoine Griezmann also got on the scoresheet as France replied to Mihail Alexandrov’s early penalty to secure their first win of their World Cup qualifying campaign.

Deschamps told TF1: “We could pick fault with the penalty but they regained control of the match and went in at the break two goals ahead.

“In the second period we were not in trouble and created several more chances. We scored a goal and could have had two more.”

Belgium moved to the top of Group H after a 4-0 win against Bosnia and Herzegovina in their World Cup qualifier in Brussels.

An own goal by Emir Spahic opened the scoring on 26 minutes and Belgium doubled their lead just three minutes later when Eden Hazard got on the end of Dries Mertens’ cross.

The Euro 2016 quarter-finalists looked much the stronger side throughout the game and Roberto Martinez’s men were out of sight on the hour mark.

After winning a corner, Toby Alderweireld made it 3-0 as he got on the end of Mertens’ corner in the six-yard box.

Everton striker Romelu Lukaku scored Belgium’s fourth on 79 minutes with a superb strike into the top right corner from outside the box as the home side made it two comfortable wins in a row at the start of qualifying.

Quincy Promes scored his first two international goals as Holland overpowered Belarus 4-1 in their World Cup qualifier in Rotterdam.

The Spartak Moscow winger struck twice in the first half to put the Dutch in control before Alexei Rios pulled one back in the Group A fixture.

But any prospect of a fightback was swiftly extinguished by Davy Klaassen, and Vincent Janssen added a fourth for the hosts.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored four World Cup qualifying goals as European champions Portugal humbled nine-man Andorra 6-0 in Aveiro.

The captain reached 65 international strikes with a brace in each half, Joao Cancelo and Andre Silva adding the extras against a team which lost Jordi Rubio and Marc Rebes to red cards.

Substitute Valentin Stocker scored a late winner as Switzerland beat Hungary 3-2 in Budapest to make it back-to-back qualifying victories.

Mikael Lustig’s 58th-minute goal settled Sweden’s 1-0 victory over Luxembourg, who had Kevin Malget sent off, while Kostas Mitroglou and Petros Mandalos fired Greece to a 2-0 win over Cyprus.

Elsewhere, the Faroe Islands claimed a 2-0 victory in Latvia and Estonia ran out 4-0 victors against Gibraltar.

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