Spain all but secured their place in the World Cup finals after a 4-0 win over Georgia in Tbilisi saw Luis de la Fuente\u2019s side set a new national record of 30 matches unbeaten.<\/p>\n
Mikel Oyarzabal, on his 50th international appearance, set the European champions on their way with an 11th-minute penalty, given following a VAR review.<\/p>\n
Arsenal midfielder Martin Zubimendi soon doubled the lead and Ferran Torres added a third before half-time, with Oyarzabal scoring another just after the hour.<\/p>\n
Spain are three points clear of Turkey \u2013 who beat bottom side Bulgaria 2-0 in in Bursa \u2013 at the top of Group E, with the two teams meeting in their final qualifier in Seville on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Graham Potter\u2019s first match in charge of Sweden ended with a 4-1 defeat away to Switzerland, who are three points clear at the top of Group B and another team on the brink of qualification.<\/p>\n
Breel Embolo put the home side ahead at Stade de Geneve, before Celtic winger Benjamin Nygren equalised ahead of half-time.<\/p>\n
Sunderland midfielder Granit Xhaka restored Switzerland\u2019s lead from the penalty spot on the hour, with Dan Ndoye adding a third before Johan Manzambi slotted in during added time.<\/p>\n
Kosovo maintained hopes of a first World Cup finals appearance with a 2-0 win over 10-man Slovenia in Ljubljana, but look set for runners-up spot given Switzerland\u2019s superior goal difference ahead of their match in Pristina next week.<\/p>\n
Scotland\u2019s hopes of automatic qualification from Group C suffered a setback with a 3-2 defeat in Greece, despite a late fightback.<\/p>\n
Steve Clarke\u2019s men found themselves 3-0 down just after the hour after goals from Anastasios Bakasetas, Konstantinos Karetsas and Christos Tzolis.<\/p>\n
Ben Gannon-Doak and then Ryan Christie reduced the deficit to sent up a grandstand finish, but a late equaliser just would not come, even after Bakasetas was sent off in the closing stages.<\/p>\n
Scotland must now beat Denmark \u2013 who were held to a 2-2 draw at home by Belarus \u2013 in Glasgow on Tuesday night to finish top.<\/p>\n
Belgium were also held to a surprise 1-1 draw away in Kazakhstan, but remain on course for qualification at the top of Group J.<\/p>\n
Wales kept themselves in contention for runner-up spot in the group after a second-half goal from Jordan James closed out a 1-0 away win over Liechtenstein \u2013 and now will need to beat North Macedonia in Cardiff next week to make the play-offs.<\/p>\n
Marko Arnautovic scored twice as Austria won 2-0 in Cyprus to sit two points clear at the top of Group H.<\/p>\n
Bosnia and Herzegovina beat 10-man Romania 3-1 in Zenica to also guarantee at least a play-off place ahead of their final match in Austria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain all but secured their place in the World Cup finals after a 4-0 win over Georgia in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,61271,132151,135221,6875,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-572903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-fai","11":"tag-league-of-ireland","12":"tag-local-soccer","13":"tag-premiership","14":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115556139883588245","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}