Germany on Wednesday experienced a stunning 2-1 home loss to North Macedonia in FIFA World Cup qualifying, while defending champions France edged Bosnia and Herzegovina 1-0 and England beat a Poland side missing the injured Robert Lewandowski.
SSC Napoli midfielder Eljif Elmas secured a famous victory for North Macedonia in Duisburg, scoring five minutes from time to give his country a second win from three Group J matches.
Veteran striker Goran Pandev, 37, put the visitors in front just before halftime, but Ilkay Gundogan leveled from the penalty spot after Leroy Sane was fouled in the penalty area.
Timo Werner missed an opportunity after coming off the bench, and Elmas condemned the four-time world champions to a first defeat in qualifying for the global showpiece since 2001 when he steered in a cut-back from Arijan Ademi.
Germany are level with North Macedonia in a section led by Armenia, who won for the third time in as many games thanks to two late goals in a 3-2 win over Romania.
Antoine Griezmann scored the only goal of the game in Sarajevo, as France recorded a second away win in four days over Bosnia and Herzegovina following their 2-0 success in Kazakhstan at the weekend.
After being held 1-1 at home by Ukraine in their opening game on the road to the finals in Qatar next year, France are in a strong position at the top of Group D.
Manchester United defender Harry Maguire struck a late winner for England as the 2018 World Cup semi-finalists overcame Poland 2-1 at Wembley.
Harry Kane put England ahead with a first-half penalty after a foul on Raheem Sterling, but a mistake by John Stones allowed Poland to level through Jakub Moder.
England regained the lead with five minutes left when Maguire smashed home after central defensive partner Stones headed a corner back across the goal.
The win means that England are at the top of Group I with nine points, after wins in qualifiers against San Marino and Albania.
Goals from Dani Olmo, Ferran Torres and second-half substitute Gerard Moreno lifted Spain to a 3-1 victory over Kosovo and to the top of Group B.
However, the qualifier in Seville was overshadowed by a pre-match diplomatic dispute, stemming from the description of Kosovo as a “territory” by the Spanish Football Federation when it published Spain’s group fixtures.
Stefano Sensi scored just after his introduction as a halftime substitute to help Italy register a third successive win in Group C.
Roberto Mancini’s team defeated Lithuania 2-0 in Vilnius with Ciro Immobile adding a stoppage-time penalty for Italy.
Andreas Olsen netted two points as Denmark thrashed Austria 4-0 to take charge of Group F, with Joakim Maehle and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg also on target in Vienna.
Scotland are second in the group after easing to a 4-0 win over the Faroe Islands. John McGinn bagged two goals, while Che Adams and Ryan Fraser completed the scoring.
Iceland, in the same group as Germany, picked up their first qualifying points with a 4-1 win away to Liechtenstein.
Northern Ireland drew 0-0 at home to Bulgaria, while Ukraine were held 1-1 by Kazakhstan in Kiev.
It was the third straight draw for Ukraine, who are coached by former national star Andriy Shevchenko.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier