Kane treble leaves England feeling grand

(Q) EURO 2020 QUALIFIERS (Q)
AUSTRIA, BELGIUM, CROATIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, DENMARK, ENGLAND, FINLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, NETHERLANDS, POLAND, PORTUGAL, RUSSIA, SPAIN, SWEDEN, SWITZERLAND, TURKEY, UKRAINE, WALES

ENGLAND marked their 1000th international with a thumping 7-0 win over Montenegro which sealed a place at the Euro 2020 finals in the summer.

Harry Kane scored a first-half hat-trick to take his international goal tally to 31, a total which takes him past the likes of Nat Lofthouse, Tom Finney and Alan Shearer into sixth place on the all-time scorers list.

By the time Kane got his first two, both through unmarked headers from corners, the Three Lions were already 1-0 up through Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's opener.

It was the Liverpool midfielder's first goal for the national team in more than two injury-ravaged years as he killed a pass from Ben Chilwell before firing past the helpless Milan Mijatović.

Chilwell, the in-form Leicester City left-back, in fact set up each of the first three as Kane gorged on his set-piece delivery and it quickly became apparent that Montenegro were going to be no match for a vibrant England.

At the interval, it was 5-0 as Marcus Rashford got himself on the scoresheet with a rasping shot before Kane completed his treble after turning his marker inside-out.

Inevitably perhaps, the second half did not provide anything like the same sort of fare for the 77,277 in attendance at Wembley.

But, still, there were two more goals to savour - although the first of those was merely the predictably comic culmination of an own goal following a bit of pinball in the Montenegrin box.

Finally, Kane's replacement, young Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham, completed the scoring with his first senior international goal - and, as such, became the 430th player to score for the Three Lions.

England were in seventh heaven as they recorded their biggest home win in 32 years to qualify with a match to spare.

Indeed, except for problems at centre-back following the poor defeat to the Czech Republic in Prague, the main worries during this campaign have come away from the field of play.

Racism reared its ugly head in the visits to Montenegro and, particularly notably, Bulgaria - while the build-up to this match focused mainly on the fall-out from the scuffle between Raheem Sterling and Joe Gomez.

Deemed the instigator, Sterling was dropped from the matchday squad while Gomez retained his place and was introduced from the bench for the last 20 minutes.

Sadly, and somewhat bizarrely, the Liverpool defender was welcomed onto the pitch by a chorus of boos from some sections of the crowd, prompting post-match condemnation from head coach Gareth Southgate as well as Sterling on social media.

Outwith that rather sour note, though, this was another night for Southgate and England to cherish as they became one of the 20 teams to make it through to Euro 2020 so far.

In truth, none of the big guns have struggled in this kindly qualifying process in which two teams progress directly from each group.

World number one-ranked Belgium made it through as early as last month and so did Italy, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, and Spain.

Now, as well as England, a further 13 teams have qualified this week - namely Turkey, France, Czech Republic, Sweden, Croatia, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Denmark, Wales and, for the first time ever, Finland.

A further four slots will not be confirmed until the playoffs in late March - and this is where it can get a bit complicated.

EURO 2020 QUALIFYING GROUPS

The 55 teams were drawn into five groups of five teams (A-E), and five groups of six teams (F-J). The top two teams in each group qualified for the finals.

	GROUP A	Pts		GROUP B	Pts		GROUP C	Pts
(Q)	ENGLAND	21	(Q)	UKRAINE	20	(Q)	GERMANY	21
(Q)	CZECH REP	15	(Q)	PORTUGAL	17	(Q)	NETHERLANDS	19
[D]	KOSOVO	11	[C]	SERBIA	14	[B]	N IRELAND	13
[A]	BULGARIA	6	4	Luxembourg	4	[D]	BELARUS	4
5	Montenegro	3	5	Lithuania	1	5	Estonia	1
	GROUP D	Pts		GROUP E	Pts		GROUP F	Pts
(Q)	SWITZERLAND	17	(Q)	CROATIA	17	(Q)	SPAIN	26
(Q)	DENMARK	16	(Q)	WALES	14	(Q)	SWEDEN	21
[B]	IRELAND	13	[D]	SLOVAKIA	13	[C]	NORWAY	17
[D]	GEORGIA	8	[A]	HUNGARY	12	[A]	ROMANIA	14
5	Gibraltar	0	5	Azerbaijan	1	5	Faroe Islands	3
						6	Malta	3
	GROUP G	Pts		GROUP H	Pts		GROUP I	Pts
(Q)	POLAND	25	(Q)	FRANCE	25	(Q)	BELGIUM	30
(Q)	AUSTRIA	19	(Q)	TURKEY	23	(Q)	RUSSIA	24
[D]	N MACEDONIA	14	[A]	ICELAND	19	[C]	SCOTLAND	15
4	Slovenia	14	4	Albania	13	4	Cyprus	10
[C]	ISRAEL	11	5	Andorra	4	5	Kazakhstan	10
6	Latvia	3	6	Moldova	3	6	San Marino	0
	GROUP J	Pts
(Q)	ITALY	30
(Q)	FINLAND	18
3	Greece	14
[B]	BOSNIA-HERZ	13
5	Armenia	10
6	Liechtenstein	2

NATIONS LEAGUE STANDINGS

The final standings in the 2018-2019 Nations League determined the 16 teams who will compete in the Euro 2020 playoffs in March, as follows:

1. All available group winners were selected.
2. If a group winner had already qualified through the Euro 2020 qualifying group stage (as above), they were replaced by the next best-ranked team from the same league which had not also already qualified.
3. If fewer than four teams from a given league had failed to qualify, then the remaining spaces for that league were allocated by the overall ranking:
   (a) if the league had a group winner* selected for the play-offs, the next best team in the overall ranking from a lower league was selected
   (b) if the league had no group winner available, the best team in the overall ranking was selected.

	LEAGUE A		LEAGUE B		LEAGUE C		LEAGUE D
(Q)	PORTUGAL	[B]	BOSNIA-HERZ	[C]	SCOTLAND	[D]	GEORGIA
(Q)	NETHERLANDS	(Q)	UKRAINE	[C]	NORWAY	[D]	N MACEDONIA
(Q)	ENGLAND	(Q)	DENMARK	[C]	SERBIA	[D]	KOSOVO
(Q)	SWITZERLAND	(Q)	SWEDEN	(Q)	FINLAND	[D]	BELARUS
(Q)	BELGIUM	(Q)	RUSSIA	[A]	BULGARIA	44	Luxembourg
(Q)	FRANCE	(Q)	AUSTRIA	[C]	ISRAEL	45	Armenia
(Q)	SPAIN	(Q)	WALES	[A]	HUNGARY	46	Azerbaijan
(Q)	ITALY	(Q)	CZECH REP	[A]	ROMANIA	47	Kazakhstan
(Q)	CROATIA	[B]	SLOVAKIA	33	Greece	48	Moldova
(Q)	POLAND	(Q)	TURKEY	34	Albania	49	Gibraltar
(Q)	GERMANY	[B]	IRELAND	35	Montenegro	50	Faroe Islands
[A]	ICELAND	[B]	N IRELAND	36	Cyprus	51	Latvia
				37	Estonia	52	Liechtenstein
				38	Slovenia	53	Andorra
				39	Lithuania	54	Malta
						55	San Marino

*Note The top four teams in each league as listed above won their Nations League group

Remember the Nations League? Well, the performance of teams in their respective league divisions are the key to their qualifying prospects.

League D is simple enough to understand. None of the Nations League group winners - Georgia, North Macedonia, Kosovo or Belarus - were able to qualify through their respective groups and so they will all feature in the playoffs with the winner of their 'path' going on to progress to the finals.

It is largely the same story in League C with Scotland, Norway and Serbia all failing to make it through to the finals in their qualifying groups.

Finland did make it through, however - so their place will be taken by Bulgaria, Israel, Hungary or Romania as determined by a draw on Friday.

In League B, Bosnia-Herzegovina were the only Nations League winners needing to fall back on the playoffs but the remaining places will be filled by the three spare teams from the same division - Slovakia, Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Unsurprisingly, it was all rather different among the big guns of League A with only Iceland finishing outside of the top two of their group.

That, in itself, is something which is perhaps not so much of a shock given previously they were punching well above their weight.

But system has still come to the benefit of the Icelanders - for, as the only League A team, the three vacant places in their divisional playoff path have been back-filled by the remaining unallocated teams from down in League C.

Meanwhile, the finals draw on 30 November in Bucharest is still more convoluted again.

There are no fewer than 12 host cities, all in different countries, with seven of those having qualified while another three may yet make it through via the playoffs.

The complication comes from the fact that the host nations will stage at least two and possibly three of their own countries' group matches in the finals, based upon performance in the qualifiers.

Hosts have already been allocated groups in line with this - and, as such, England already know that they will be at Wembley for their three Group D matches.

Meanwhile, Scotland - if they make it through the back door - will get two home games in the same section, but they will play England in London.

In Groups A, C, E and F, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Germany will get three home games in Rome, Amsterdam, Bilbao and Munich respectively.

Otherwise, the remaining teams slot in somewhere or other - but, frankly, it has got too complicated even for me!

Regardless of this migraine-inducing format for a tournament, though, England can consider themselves to be in a decent position.

Both semi finals on 7 and 8 July, and the Final on 12 July will be held at Wembley - so, if a young Three Lions team happen to pay out early on their promise, home advantage awaits.