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On Saturday evening, throughout Europe, there were qualifying matches for the 2008 European Championship in Austria and Switzerland. England and Slovakia started the qualifying campaign powerfully, crushing their opponents with impressive results. However, the biggest victory was achieved by the Scots, who play in the same B group as Lithuania, defeating the Faroe Islands 6-0 at home. Meanwhile, the biggest sensation can be considered not only Lithuania's draw with World Champions Italy 1-1 on their field, but also Finland's victory against debutants Poland at their home. Israel, Sweden, and the Netherlands footballers achieved difficult victories as guests. The first two teams beat Estonia and Latvia respectively by minimal results as guests. Meanwhile, the heavyweight European footballers Netherlands struggled to achieve a minimal victory against minnow Luxembourg. In addition to the aforementioned victory by the Scots, World Cup runners-up France achieved a convincing victory as guests in Lithuania's B group, beating Georgia 3-0. According to the UEFA website, these matches for the French were a warm-up before the World Cup final rematch on Wednesday. The guests took the lead in the seventh minute when Florent Malouda scored after a great performance by Franck Ribery. F. Ribery also contributed to the second goal in less than ten minutes when "Manchester United" forward Louis Saha scored with a great shot from about 15 meters. It is worth mentioning that after the first goal, Shota Arveladze had a real opportunity to equalize when he headed above the goal, and later the result was almost softened by Gogita Gogua, who almost disarmed Gregory Coupet from about 25 meters. The hosts had a hard time stopping their opponents - Levan Kobiashvili, Jaba Kankava, and Gogita Gogua received yellow cards. The "Les Bleus", on the other hand, fought differently with their opponents and secured three points in the early stages of the second half - after a pass from Willy Sagnol, the ball went into the net as Thierry Henry put pressure on defender Malkhaz Asatiani. Georgia lineup: Chanturia; Khizanishvili, Kobiashvili, Asatiani, Kankava; Aladashvili (39` Kandelaki), Gogua, Iashvili (45` Kvirkvelia), Demetradze (82` Menteshashvili); Mujiri, Arveladze; France lineup: Coupet; Sagnol, Thuram, Gallas, Abidal; Vieira, Makelele (58` Mavuba), Ribery (69` Govou), Malouda; Saha (86` Wiltord), Henry; Even more impressively, the qualification cycle was started by the Scotland national team, who crushed the Faroe Islands footballers 6-0 at home. The hosts led 2-0 within the first ten minutes and left no hope for the minnow North Atlantic country. The architects of the first two goals can be considered Kenny Miller, who joined "Celtic" in the summer. Initially, he outwitted his defender and made a great pass to Darren Fletcher, and after a few minutes, he entered the penalty area where the ball ended up with James McFadden. According to the English media, the Scots continued to smile at success when a penalty of eleven meters was awarded for a foul against Kris Boyd in the 23rd minute, which was successfully converted by "Rangers" forward. Soon after, a second penalty of eleven meters was awarded to the Faroe Islands when there was a foul against D. Fletcher. Although K. Miller struck weakly, he managed to score into Jakup Mikkelsen's goal. Approaching the end of the first half, K. Boyd scored the fifth goal into the visitor's net, his second goal in the match. In the second half of the match, the Scots successfully slowed down the very fast pace, but J. Mikkelsen's workload definitely did not decrease. He managed to resist two strikes from J. McFadden and a header from K. Boyd. However, the Scots managed to score in the second half as well - towards the end of the match, just over five minutes after coming on the field, Gary O'Connor received a good pass from J. McFadden and easily disarmed the tired J. Mikkelsen. Scotland lineup: Gordon; Dailly, Weir, Pressley, Naysmith; Fletcher (45` Teale), Hartley, Quashie (84` Severin), Miller (61` O`Connor), Boyd, McFadden; Faroe Islands lineup: Mikkelsen; Hansen, Johannesen, Danielsen, Joensen, Benjaminsen, Johnsonn (76` Samuelsen), Borg, Frederiksberg (60` Thorleifsson), Christian Hogni Jacobsen, Rogvi Jacobsen (84` Nielsen). Saturday's match statistics A group Serbia 1 - 0 Azerbaijan 72` [1 - 0] Nikola Zigic Poland 1 - 3 Finland 54` [0 - 1] Jari Litmanen 76` [0 - 2] Jari Litmanen (11 m.) 85` [0 - 3] Mika Vayrynen 90` [1 - 3] Lukasz Gargula 75` Arkadiusz Glowacki (Poland) was sent off the field B group Scotland 6 - 0 Faroe Islands 7` [1 - 0] Darren Fletcher 10` [2 - 0] James McFadden 24` [3 - 0] Kris Boyd (11 m.) 30` [4 - 0] Kenny Miller (11 m.) 38` [5 - 0] Kris Boyd 85` [6 - 0] Garry O'Connor Georgia 0 - 3 France 7` [0 - 1] Florent Malouda 15` [0 - 2] Louis Saha 46` [0 - 3] Thierry Henry Italy 1 - 1 Lithuania 21` [0 - 1] Tomas Danilevicius 30` [1 - 1] Filippo Inzaghi C group Malta 2 - 5 Bosnia and Herzegovina 4` [0 - 1] Sergej Barbarez 6` [1 - 1] Jamie Pace 10` [1 - 2] Mirko Hrgovic 45` [1 - 3] Mirko Hrgovic 48` [1 - 4] Zlatan Muslimovic 50` [1 - 5] Zlatan Muslimovic 86` [2 - 5] Miguel Mifsud Hungary 1 - 4 Norway 15` [0 - 1] Ole-Gunar Solskjaer 32` [0 - 2] Fredrik Stromstad 41` [0 - 3] Morten-Gamst Pedersen 54` [0 - 4] Ole-Gunar Solskjaer 90` [1 - 4] Zoltan Gera (11 m.) Moldova 0 - 1 Greece 78` [0 - 1] Nikos Liberopoulos D group Czech Republic 2 - 1 Wales 76` [1 - 0] David Lafata 85` [1 - 1] Martin Jiranek (own goal) 89` [2 - 1] David Lafata Slovakia 6 - 1 Cyprus 9` [1 - 0] Martin Skrtel 33` [2 - 0] Marek Mintal 43` [3 - 0] Filip Sebo 48` [4 - 0] Filip Sebo 52` [5 - 0] Miroslav Karhan 55` [6 - 0] Marek Mintal 90` [6 - 1] Yiasoumis Yiasoumi Germany 1 - 0 Ireland 59` [1 - 0] Lukas Podolski E group England 5 - 0 Andorra 5` [1 - 0] Peter Crouch 13` [2 - 0] Steven Gerrard 38` [3 - 0] Jermain Defoe 47` [4 - 0] Jermain Defoe 66` [5 - 0] Peter Crouch Estonia 0 - 1 Israel 8` [0 - 1] Roberto Collauti F group Northern Ireland 0 - 3 Iceland 13` [0 - 1] Gunnar Heidar Thorvaldsson 20` [0 - 2] Hermann Hreidarsson 37` [0 - 3] Eidur Gudjohnsen Latvia 0 - 1 Sweden 38` [0 - 1] Kim Kallstrom Spain 4 - 0 Liechtenstein 20` [1 - 0] Fernando Torres 45` [2 - 0] David Villa 62` [3 - 0] David Villa 66` [4 - 0] Luis Garcia G group Belarus 2 - 2 Albania 2` [1 - 0] Timofey Kalachev 7` [1 - 1] Ervin Skela (11 m.) 24` [2 - 1] Maxim Romaschenko 86` [2 - 2] Besnik Hasi Romania 2 - 2 Bulgaria 40` [1 - 0] Laurentiu Rosu 55` [2 - 0] Ciprian Marica 82` [2 - 1] Martin Petrov 83` [2 - 2] Martin Petrov 90` Gabriel Tamas (Romania) was sent off the field Luxembourg 0 - 1 Netherlands 18` [0 - 1] Joris Mathijsen
