France reached the top of Group A in the World Cup 2018 qualifiers on Monday as Paul Pogba's long-range strike in the first half was all that the 1998 champions needed to beat Holland at the Amsterdam Arena. Belgium and Portugal landed 6-0 wins each, with the latter completing their second win with the same scoreline in the space of three days.
Christian Benteke recorded the fastest goal scored in the history of World Cup qualifiers, taking only seven seconds to open Belgium's account against hapless Gibraltar. The Crystal Palace striker netted a hat-trick, a feat that was matched by rising Portuguese star Andre Silva.
A tale of two goalkeepers in Amsterdam
In the second half of the contest, France decimated Holland on the counter-attack and could have had about five goals by the end of the contest. On the flipside, the game could have easily ended up being a stalemate too as Memphis Depay, inside the box, unleashed a crisp volley goalwards, but France keeper Hugo Lloris showed brilliant reflexes to keep his team's clean sheet intact.
In the first half, Holland looked like the team with more ideas on the ball, despite not creating many goalscoring chances. Against the run of play, Pogba struck a powerful shot from midfield, but Holland goalie Maarten Stekelenburg should have done a lot better to parry the ball away. France striker Kevin Gamiero had two excellent chances in the second half but they were spurned. France moved to the top of Group A with the win.
Portugal can't stop scoring
After smashing six against Andorra, Portugal once again capitalised against a lowly outfit, belting another half-a-dozen goals past Faroe Islands without reply to go second in Group B behind Switzerland, who have won all their three games so far.
For once, it was not Cristiano Ronaldo spearheading the show. The highly-rated FC Porto striker, Andre Silva, smashed a 25-minute hat-trick to set the tone. The European champions had to wait until the second half before they extended their lead as skipper Ronaldo got on the scoresheet with a fiercely struck shot. Joao Moutinho got his side's fifth, scoring off an excellent long-range shot before right-back Jose Cancelo completed the rout in the dying seconds of the game.
Benteke enters history books
Christian Benteke broke a 23-year-old record to create a new milestone, becoming the fastest scorer during a World Cup qualifying match, beating the record set by San Marino's Davide Gualtieri against England in 1993. The goal, which only took seven seconds, was also the fastest in Belgium's history as the Red Devils hammered Gibraltar 6-0.
Midfielder Axel Witsel scored the second goal before Benteke got his second just before the half-time interval to hand Belgium a 3-0 lead. Dries Mertens capped off a memorable week with a goal in the 51st minute. Five minutes later, Benteke completed his hat-trick. Chelsea star Eden Hazard added a sixth 10 minutes from time.
Brief scores
- Holland 0 lose to France 1 (Paul Pogba) - Group A
- Faroe Islands 0 lose to Portugal 6 (Andre Silva x 3, Cristiano Ronaldo, Joao Moutinho, Joao Cancelo) - Group B
- Gibraltar 0 lose to Belgium 6 (Christian Benteke x 3, Axel Witsel, Dries Mertens, Eden Hazard) - Group H
- Belarus 1 (Pavel Savitski) draw with Luxembourg 0 (Aurelin Joachim) - Group A
- Sweden 3 (Ola Toivonen, Oscar Hiljemark, Victor Lindelof) beat Bulgaria 0 - Group A
- Bosnia and Herzegovina 2 (Edin Dzeko) beat Cyprus 0 - Group H
- Estonia 0 lose to Greece 2 (Vasilis Torosidis, Kostas Stafylidis) - Group H
