Cristiano Ronaldo pounces to score 99th international goal
Sunday 17 November 2019 22:28, UK
Portugal sealed their place at Euro 2020 - but Cristiano Ronaldo was made to wait a little longer to reach a goalscoring milestone.
Ronaldo took his career tally to 99 international goals in Sunday's 2-0 win against Luxembourg with some goal-line poaching of the highest order.
The Juventus star tapped in a shot by team-mate Diogo Jota that was just about to go over the line in the 86th minute, but was unable to net another that would have seen him hit the 100-goal mark for his country.
Bruno Fernandes got Portugal's first goal against the flow of play in the 39th minute when he converted a long ball from Bernardo Silva.
Luxembourg had outplayed Portugal until that point, dealing with the poor field conditions better than the defending European champions, but Ronaldo and his team-mates sealed second place in Group B with the victory.
Ukraine, who had already gone through as group winner, finished with a dramatic 2-2 draw against Serbia.
Artem Biesiedin scored a 93rd-minute equaliser for the group winners, with Serbia condemned to the play-offs in March.
France ensured they finished top of Group H with a 2-0 victory at Albania, thanks to first-half goals from Corentin Tolisso and Antoine Griezmann.
The French took the lead on eight minutes with their first chance, as Tolisso met Griezmann's free-kick with his head and guided it past Etrit Berisha.
Griezmann followed up his assist with a goal, turning in Leo Dubois' powerful, low cross with a first-time finish and that proved enough for Didier Deschamps' world champions.
That result meant that despite beating Andorra 2-0, Turkey had to settle with second place in the group, having already secured qualification for Euro 2020.
Enes Unal put the visitors ahead with a simple finish on 17 minutes, before he was fouled in the box by Josep Gomes and got up to convert the resulting penalty.
In the other game in the group, Iceland picked up a 2-1 win at Moldova. Birkir Bjarnason gave Iceland the lead before half-time, but Nicolae Milinceanu equalised shortly after the break to pull the hosts level.
Everton star Gylfi Sigurdsson put Iceland back ahead with 25 minutes remaining, before missing a penalty 13 minutes later. But that did not stop them winning and finishing on a high ahead of their play play-off games in March.
While England beat Kosovo 4-0 to make it seven wins from eight qualifying games, the other Group A game saw Bulgaria earn their first victory in the group with a 1-0 win over Czech Republic.
The Czechs finish second in the table, six points behind England with five wins from eight games, but came unstuck in Sofia thanks to a Vasil Bozhikov strike on the 56-minute mark.
That goal came against the run of play, as the visitors dominated possession and had 18 shots on goal, but failed to find the back of the net.
It means Kosovo finish third, Bulgaria fourth and Montenegro, who didn't play today, end up bottom of the group. Kosovo and Bulgaria will both take part in the play-offs in March.
