Qualifiers for Euro 2024: Cristiano Ronaldo continues to impress, and a Dutch delight in Greece
Another team assured of competing at the 2024 European Championship in Germany on a different matchday.
Three key points may be drawn from Monday’s Euro qualifying slate. Before this month’s international window closes and players go back to their clubs, there will be another round of games on Tuesday.
After their victory in Greece, the Netherlands almost qualified.
In the end, the Netherlands, who defeated Greece 3-0 in Eindhoven last month, achieved their goal. Following an empty first eighty-eight minutes, in which Dutch striker Wout Weghorst missed a penalty, Greek forward Vangelis Pavlidis tackled Denzel Dumfries in the area. After a protracted video review, Virgil van Dijk, the captain, was given another spot kick, and he made the crucial conversion from 12 yards past goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos.
With two matches left against Gibraltar and the Republic of Ireland, who have already been eliminated, coach Ronald Koeman’s Oranje are now in a good position to make it to the championship next summer. Greece needs to defeat Les Bleus in their final game to stand a genuine chance of earning one of the two direct spots to the main event out of Group B.
Austria formalizes it
The two automatic qualifiers from Group E would be Austria and Belgium, as has been clear for some time. However, the Austrians had to wait until the last game of the October window, while the Belgians completed the deal on Friday in a head-to-head contest between the two teams.
On the surface, going to Azerbaijan and winning seemed like an easy enough task for a team that sits almost 100 places above the hosts in FIFA’s latest world ranking.
In practice, Monday’s contest was closer than most expected. It took a 49th minute penalty from substitute Marcel Sabitzer for the visitors to take the lead in Baku, and they were forced to sweat it out all the way to the end of their eventual 1-0 victory.
They’re in, whatever happened. Austria has made four trips to the European Championship, all since 2008. This is their second consecutive year after their best-ever performance last time out in the knockout round. Team Ralf Rangnick has to think it can perform even better on the other side of the German border next summer.
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