Serbia qualified for Euro – its first place in the Euro final as an independent nation–after a nervy 2-2 draw at home to Bulgaria in its final Group G match on Sunday.
Dragan Stojkovic’s team knew that one point would be enough even if Montenegro smack the already qualified Hungary. Montenegro, third in the group, took the lead in Budapest, but lost 3-1. Serbia, on the other hand, fell behind in the second half, before Srdjan Babic secured qualification with a equalizer.
It seemed easy to the hosts when Milos Veljkovic came home to open the scoring in the 16th minute, but Leskovac fans began to feel the nerves after Slobodan Rubezic scored for Montenegro about 500 miles away in the first half.
Bulgaria, the last of the group and in search of its first victory, hit back in the second half, when Georgi Rusev in the 59th Kiril Despodov, who had hit the crossbar in the first half, surprised the local audience 10 minutes after by lifting the ball over Vanja Milinkovic-Savic to give the visitors the lead.
Fortunately for Serbia, news quickly came that Dominik Szoboszlai had scored twice in the space of two minutes to give Hungary the lead. Babic then came home just short in the 82nd minute to score a draw and let the celebrations begin.
Romelu Lukaku scored four goals in 20 minutes in the first half as Belgium scored 10 in a 5-0 win over Azerbaijan in Group F in Brussels. Lukaku showed a great clinical finish by increasing his total number in the pool to 14 in eight matches when Belgium took first place. Azerbaijan finished fourth.
The home team took a 4-0 lead in 37 minutes when they enjoyed an early red card for the Azerbaijani Eddy Israfilov, who was sent off for a second booking after a crazy failure on Lukaku. Leandro Trossard scored a fifth goal, but Belgium’s efforts were led by their captain Lukaku, who increased his international goals to 83 in 113 games before being substituted at half-time.
In the other match of Group F, Sweden won 2-0 against Estonia. It was the last match of the seven-year term of the outgoing Swedish coach Janne Andersson, which was completed with a bang thanks to the goals of Viktor Claesson and Emil Forsberg.
Spaniards Robin Le Normand and Ferran Torres scored before an own goal from Luka Lochoshvili ended a 3-1 win over Georgia in their final Group a match.the hosts sealed first place with 21 points after seven wins in eight matches, having lost only to second-placed Scotland, who finished with 17 points after a 3-3 draw with Norway.
