Italy starts the qualifiers with a loss, England punishes them at the "Maradona" stadium

Last night, the first qualifying matches of the European Championship "Germany-2024" were played, where according to the calendar, the teams of groups C, H and J had their turn to take the field. In group C, Italy, the reigning champion of Europe, started with a loss (1-2) this eliminatory stage, being defeated by the English "Three Lions", while in the same group North Macedonia started with a victory, defeating Malta 2-1. It must be said that England have beaten Italy after six games and for the first time in Italy since 1961. The English won 2:1 at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium in Naples on Thursday night, while Harry Kane wrote football history English. This was the first match of the qualifying Group C of next year's European Championship to be organized in Germany. Declan Rice scored the first goal for the visitors in the 13th minute. Harry Kane scored the second goal from the penalty in the 44th minute. With this note, Kane became the best scorer in the history of the "Three Lions" with 54 goals. He surpassed Wayne Rooney in this statistic, who had 53 goals in total. Italy narrowed the lead with Argentina's Tigre striker Mateo Retegui. It was his first goal in his debut with the "Azzurre". The guests played from the 80th minute with one less player on the field after Luke Shaë was punished with the second yellow card. In the same group, North Macedonia started its elimination phase with a loss. Thus, the representative of North Macedonia got the first victory in the Euro 2024 qualifiers. The Balkan team, with three Albanian players in the starting line-up (Alioski, Bardhi, Musliu) and four others on the reserve bench (Bejtulai, Elezi, Ethemi and Ademi), defeated Malta 2-0 at the "Toshe Proeski" stadium in Skopje, where the victory was achieved in the second half. The first 45 minutes ended without goals, to come after the 66th minute, when Ejlif Elmas sent the ball into the net. In the 86th minute, Janik cut the gap to 2-1, but nothing changed in the remaining minutes, with the hosts celebrating their first success of this knockout campaign. In Group H, Denmark beat Finland 3-1, Slovenia beat Kazakhstan 2-1 and Northern Ireland beat San Marino 2-0. In group J, Bosnia-Herzegovina beat Iceland 3-0, Portugal beat Liechtenstein 4-0 where Ronaldo also scored, while Slovakia disappointed in their field against Luxembourg, drawing 0-0. In the following days, the first matches in the other groups will be played. Albania is in Group E along with Poland, the Czech Republic, Moldova and the Faroe Islands.