England and Portugal finished the first window of the qualifiers for the 2024 European Football Championship with full marks, by defeating Ukraine and Luxembourg, respectively, on Sunday, while defending champion Italy achieved its first victory at the expense of Malta.

At Wembley Stadium in London, England beat Ukraine 2-0 with goals from Harry Kane (37) and Bucayo Saka (40), while Italy dropped its host and neighbor Malta with the same result, in the second round of Group C competitions.

The "Three Lions" team raised its score to six points after an opening victory over Italy in Naples Thursday 2-1, against "Scudra Azzurra" and North Macedonia (3 points each), which beat Malta in the first round with the same result.

And with the absence of North Macedonia from this round, England secured the lead before the second window scheduled for next June.
For its part, Ukraine played its first match in the qualifiers after its absence from the first round, and more than a thousand tickets were awarded to Ukrainian refugees and British families who hosted them since the Russian invasion in 2022.

The match began with the presentation of golden shoes to striker and captain Harry Kane, who, during the victory over Italy, became the historic scorer for England, by scoring the 54th goal from a penalty kick, before adding the 55th on Sunday.

"I'm very happy," said manager Southgate. "We made a tough game look easy. We've broken a lot of barriers over a period of time. Building on Italy's result was important but there's still room for improvement."

England, who lost the final of the continental championship in 2021 against Italy, by penalty kicks at Wembley Stadium in particular, dominated the course of the match, and the pressure resulted in Kane’s opening goal, after he crossed it from the right side of Saka towards the second post, and he followed it into the net.

Saka doubled the lead for England, which is searching for its second major title only in its history after the 1966 World Cup at home, with a wonderful goal with a curled left-footed shot from outside the area that settled in the top right corner of goalkeeper Anatoly Tropin.

After being absent from the World Cup in Qatar for the second time in a row, Italy is looking forward to returning to the international arena.
And it achieved its first victory in the qualifiers, with goals from Matteo Retigi (15) and Matteo Pesina (27).

Coach Roberto Mancini played the match with a relatively auxiliary squad that was completely different from the one that started against England, leaving only three players, goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, defender Giovanni De Lorenzo and Retigi, who scored against the "Three Lions".

Retigui scored his second goal in his second international match, with a header from a corner taken by Sandro Totnali.

Retigui, the Argentine-born who plays for Argentine Tigre, responded to Mancini's confidence in him after the coach said before the window in response to some criticism regarding the call-up of players: "For years it was said that you had to be born in Italy in order to represent the national team. But the world has changed." All teams now have players who are naturalized or come from other countries.

Italy doubled the score through a goal by Matteo Pesina, after a cross from Emerson Palmieri hit Sandro Tonali (27).

Veteran Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo (38 years) increased his tally of international goals and raised it to 122 in 198 matches, by scoring a brace during his country's crushing victory over Luxembourg, 6-0.

Ronaldo had also scored a brace against Liechtenstein in the first match, which ended with his country's 4-0 victory on Thursday, in a meeting in which he broke the record for the number of international matches, before reinforcing it on Sunday evening by raising it to 198 matches.

And the Portuguese national team, during the era of its new Spanish coach, Roberto Martinez, raised its score to 6 points from two matches in Group X, to put itself on the right track to reach the finals, especially since the draw dropped it in a group within its reach that also includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovakia and Iceland, knowing that the first and second qualify directly for the finals. .

Ronaldo opened the scoring for the 2016 European Champions after 9 minutes, taking advantage of a pass from Nuno Mendes.

And soon, the Chelsea striker, on loan, added Joao Felix II, after a quarter of an hour, with a header, after an elaborate pass from Bernardo Silva.

Portugal added two more goals in the first half through Silva (18), then Ronaldo with an assist from his former colleague in Manchester United, Bruno Fernandes (31). The goal is Ronaldo's eleventh against Luxembourg in 11 matches he has played against.

In the second half, substitute Ottavio added the fifth goal (77), then the other substitute, Rafael Leao, missed a penalty kick (85), before making up and ending the goal festival two minutes before the end of the match.

Denmark lost its lead by two goals against its Kazakh host, and fell 3-2 with three goals conceded in the last quarter of an hour in Group H.

Denmark, which reached the semi-finals of the continental championship in 2021, advanced with a double to young Italian striker Rasmus Venter Hollund in the first half (21 and 35).

But the hosts responded with a hat-trick in the second half, through Baktiar Zayonotdinov (73 from a penalty kick), Skhat Tajiberin (86) and Abat Ambetov (89).

Denmark started the qualifiers on Thursday with a victory at home against Finland (3-1), all of which were scored by Hollund as well, while Kazakhstan achieved its first victory after falling against its host Slovenia (2-1).

Slovenia topped the group with six points after its second victory Sunday at the expense of the modest San Marino team 2-0, while Finland won 1-0 at its host Northern Ireland, to make four teams equal with three points against San Marino empty balance.