Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick to move past Pele on the list of all-time international goalscorers as Portugal beat Faroe Islands 5-1 to stay close to Switzerland at the top of Group B in European World Cup qualifying.
Ronaldo scored with a neat volley from inside the area then added two other goals to surpass the Brazil great and move into second place on the list of Europe’s all-time scorers with 78 goals. He is six behind Hungary great Ferenc Puskas. Pele scored 77 goals for Brazil.
Switzerland stayed perfect in qualifying by defeating Andorra 3-0 in a match interrupted by poor pitch conditions under heavy rain in St. Gallen. Switzerland reached 21 points, three more than second-placed Portugal.
Meanwhile in Paris, France coach Didier Deschamps could not help showering his side with praise after its brilliant attack tore the Netherlands to shreds in a 4-0 win.
Thomas Lemar scored twice either side of goals by Antoine Griezmann and man of the moment Kylian Mbappe in the key 2018 World Cup qualifying clash at a euphoric Stade de France.
The results:
Group A: At Paris: France 4 (Griezmann 14, Lemar 73, 88, Mbappe 90+1) Netherlands 0.
At Luxembourg: Luxembourg 1 (Da Mota 60) bt Belarus 0.
At Sofia: Bulgaria 3 (Manolev 12, Kostadinov 33, Chochev 79) bt Sweden 2 (Lustig 29, Berg 44).
Group B: At Budapest: Hungary 3 (Kadar 6, Szalai 26, Dzsudzsak 68) bt Latvia 1 (Freimanis 40).
At St. Gallen (Switzerland): Switzerland 3 (Seferovic 43, 63, Lichtsteiner 67) bt Andorra 0.
At Porto (Portugal): Portugal 5 (Ronaldo 3, 29-pen, 64, William Carvalho 58, Nelson Oliveira 84) bt Faroe Islands 1 (Baldvinsson 38).
Group H: At Piraeus (Greece): Greece 0 drew with Estonia 0.
At Nicosia: Cyprus 3 (Christofi 65, Laban 67, Sotiriou 76) bt Bosnia & Herzegovina 2 (Sunjic 33, Visca 44).
At Liege (Belgium): Belgium 9 (Mertens 15, Meunier 18, 60, 67, Lukaku 21, 38, 84-pen, Witsel 27, Hazard 45) bt Gibraltar 0.