NYON: Defending champions Portugal boosted their Euro 2020 qualification hopes with a much-needed 4-2 win in Serbia.

William Carvalho and Goncalo Guedes put the visitors two up, with Nikola Milenkovic pulling one back.

Cristiano Ronaldo added a third for Portugal and, even though Aleksandar Mitrovic reduced the deficit to one again, Bernardo Silva sealed the win.

They sit second in Group B on five points from three games, eight behind runaway leaders Ukraine who cruised to a 3-0 victory over Lithuania in their fifth match.

Manchester City’s Oleksandr Zinchenko opened the scoring before further goals from Marlos and Ruslan Malinovskyi.

France avoided embarrassment on the pitch as they cruised to a routine 4-1 win over Albania – but only after a pre-match blunder had delayed the kick-off.

Organisers were left red-faced when the Andorran national anthem rang out by mistake, with Albania’s players refusing to start the Euro 2020 qualifier until the correct song was played.

When the game got under way about seven minutes late the world champions hit the ground running, with Kingsley Coman racing on to a fine through-ball from Raphael Varane and steering the ball home after eight minutes.

Olivier Giroud made it two when he swept the ball home at the near post and, even though Antoine Griezmann smashed a penalty against the bar, his low cross from the left set up Coman for the third.

Lille’s Jonathan Ikone, on as a substitute for Coman, made it four before Sokol Cikalleshi scored a late penalty for the visitors.

The win left France level on 12 points at the top of Group H with both Turkey and Iceland.

Iceland were 3-0 winners at home to Moldova thanks to goals from Kolbeinn Sigthorsson, Birkir Bjarnason and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson.

Turkey, though, needed a face-saving 89th-minute winner from Ozan Tufan to grab a 1-0 win at home to Andorra.

Harry Kane hit a hat-trick, including two penalties, as England made it three wins from three at the top of Group A with a 4-0 victory over Bulgaria at Wembley.

The Tottenham striker slid home the opener in the first half from a Raheem Sterling cutback after Bulgaria’s attempts to play out from the back went horribly wrong.

Kane fired home his first penalty five minutes after the break and, after setting up Sterling for the third, completed his treble with another emphatic finish from 12 yards.

Kosovo have emerged as England’s closest challengers in Group A as they came from behind to beat the Czech Republic 2-1 and sit a point behind the leaders, albeit having played a game more.

Patrik Schick put the Czechs ahead, but goals from Vedat Muriqi and Mergim Vojvoda turned the match on its head.

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