(AFP) - Scotsman Scott McTominay scored a new brace and led his country to a 2-0 victory over its Spanish guest on Tuesday, inflicting its first loss under the supervision of its new coach, Luis de la Fuente, in the second round of Group A competitions of the 2024 European Cup qualifiers. .
McTominay imposed himself as a star for the second match in a row, after scoring two goals from his country’s hat-trick against Cyprus in the first round of the qualifiers, raising his tally to 4 goals in two matches.
Scotland topped the group with a full score of 6 points, 3 points ahead of Spain, while Norway, tied with Georgia 1-1 earlier today, after losing 3-0 against Spain at the start of the qualifiers, ranks fourth with a point equal to Georgia, who played their match The first after she missed the first round.
The champion and runner-up of each of the ten groups, in addition to three teams from the European Nations League and the host country, qualify directly for the finals scheduled for the summer of 2024 in Germany.
The new coach of the "La Roja" team, de la Fuente, who replaced Luis Enrique after the disappointing exit from the World Cup in Qatar in the final price against Morocco with a penalty shootout 0-3 after they tied negatively, made 8 substitutions compared to the match that he won against Norway on Saturday.
At Hampden Park, Scotland opened the scoring after 7 minutes, after defender Pedro Burrow fell on the left flank to take advantage of Andrew Robertson and pass the ball back to McTominay inside the area, who shot past goalkeeper Arisabalaga Kepa.
The "La Roja" team almost equalized the score, but Joselo's header, who scored two goals within 106 seconds against Norway, hit the crossbar (23).
Boro tried to make up for the mistake he had made, hitting a ball from 25 meters with his right foot, which was narrowly blocked by goalkeeper Angis Gun (29), before Scotsman Lyndon Dykes won his struggle with Garcia, entered the area and hit a falling ball, "Loeb", which passed over the goal a minute before the half-time whistle ( 45+1).
McTominay added a second personal goal for him and his team at the start of the second half, after a pass from Kieran Tierney was intercepted by the Spanish defense, and the “Red Devils” player followed it up on the fly into the net (51).
Goalkeeper Kiba crossbar saved Spain from a third goal after a free kick by John McGinn (57).
Within the same group, the Norwegian national team, without its star striker, the giant Erling Haaland, who was absent due to injury, failed to win the second match in a row, after falling into a 1-1 draw against Georgia.
Georgia, seeking to qualify for the finals of a major tournament for the first time in its history, prepared for its continental match with a landslide victory over Mongolia 6-1 in a friendly on Saturday.
French coach Willy Sagnol contributed to the development of the Georgian national team in the last 12 months, as he led it to the second classification in the Nations League competition.
Since its exit from the group stage in 2000, Norway has failed to qualify for the European Cup final 5 times, while it has only achieved an orphan victory in its last six matches in various competitions.
Norway failed to win against Georgia after it had previously won the three previous matches that brought them together, knowing that the last meeting between them, before this evening, dates back to May 1999 in the European Cup 2000 qualifiers (Norway won 1-0).
In Batumi, the visiting team opened the scoring early through Spanish Real Sociedad striker Alexander Sorloth (15), before the hosts equalized through French second-division Metz striker Georges Mikotadze in the second half (60).
The Italian star of Napoli, Khvica Kvaratskhelia, played the match without succeeding in scoring.
In Group D, Croatia compensated for its 1-1 draw with Wales in the first round by defeating its host Turkey 2-0, scored by Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovacic (20, 45 + 4).
Croatia, runner-up to the World Cup Russia 2018 and third to Qatar 2022, topped the group with 4 points, equal to Wales, who defeated its guest Latvia 1-0, with a goal by Kiefer Moore (41).
Turkey, which returned with a valuable victory from Armenia 2-1 at the start of the qualifiers, froze at 3 points in third place, while the latter was absent from the competitions of this round.
In the ninth group, Switzerland achieved its second victory in a row by dropping Israel 3-0. It was scored by Robin Vargas (39), Zaki Amdouni (48) and Sylvain Widmer (52).
Switzerland has not missed the European Cup finals since 2012 and the World Cup since 2002, and it seems a strong candidate to obtain one of the two group nine cards to the 2024 German finals.
Switzerland, which defeated Belarus 5-0 in the first round, equaled 6 points with Romania, which inflicted its second consecutive loss on Belarus by defeating it 2-1.
The third Kosovo fell into the trap of a tie for the second consecutive match against Andorra 1-1, after tying with Israel with the same result in the first round.