Belgium battle past Wales, Italy win in World Cup qualifying (0.1874909656243254)
<img src="https://thesun.my/binrepository/338x225/0c0/0d0/none/11808/SSQW/fbl-wc-2026-eur-qualifiers-bel-wal-210539_5294870_20250610075750.jpg"><p><b>BELGIUM</b> held off a battling Wales and Italy gave sacked coach Luciano Spalletti a winning send-off in World Cup qualifying on Monday.</p><p>Elsewhere Manchester City star Erling Haaland’s goal lifted Norway past Estonia, Luka Modric was among the scorers in Croatia’s 5-1 rout of the Czech Republic, and the Faroes Islands left it late to down Gibraltar 2-1.</p><p>Giacomo Raspadori and Andrea Cambiaso scored in each half as Italy beat Moldova 2-0 to inject a smidgeon of pride back in the Azzurri camp after last week’s 3-0 thrashing by Norway which cost Spalletti his job.</p><p>The Italians trail Norway by nine points in European qualifying group I by nine points and are at risk of missing out on a third straight World Cup.</p><p>Even though they have played two games less their ticket to the United States, Canada and Mexico next year is far from certain.</p><p>Only top spot in each group guarantees automatic qualification with Italy’s best hopes appearing to rest on finishing second and reaching the play-offs.</p><p>“When you’re the national team coach you have no excuses, it’s you who selects the squad,“ said Spalletti to public broadcaster Rai.</p><p>“It’s the coach who has to make the difference and unfortunately I wasn’t able to do that.”</p><p>Over in Brussels Belgium raced to a three-goal lead over Wales courtesy of Romelu Lukaku, Youri Tielemans and Jeremy Doku inside half an hour.</p><p>Wales, though, rallied through a Harry Wilson penalty, Sorba Thomas and Brennan Johnson to stun the side ranked eighth in the world.</p><p>But De Bruyne rode to his nation’s rescue, as he has so often in a stellar career, by steering in Tielemans’ perfect cross in the 88th minute.</p><p>It left Wales sitting second in Group J, one point behind North Macedonia, 1-0 winners over Kazakhstan, and three in front of Belgium, who have two games in hand.</p><p>This was Wales manager Craig Bellamy’s first defeat in his first 10 matches in charge.</p><p>Wales captain Ben Davies told the BBC: “Getting back as close as we did is probably why it’s as painful as it is.</p><p>“We knew we could do a lot better. You could see in the second half, we managed to nick a goal before half-time and it gave us something to hang on to and we pushed them close.</p><p>“We have plenty more games we just have to focus on ourselves and hopefully results go our way.”</p><p>On Tuesday the Netherlands host Malta in Groningen hoping to make it two wins from two and close the gap on Poland, who have a stiff test in Finland, in Group G.</p>
