SAO PAULO — Brazil and Uruguay both recorded victories in the World Cup qualifiers on Friday, setting up a meeting in Montevideo next week that Brazilian defender Marquinhos predicted would be another “war” between the old rivals.
“We know that the games against Uruguay are always a war,” Marquinhos said after Brazil’s hard-fought 1-0 win over Venezuela.
BASEL, Switzerland — Spain forward Gerard Moreno came off the bench to snatch a 1-1 draw away to Switzerland in the Nations League on Saturday after Sergio Ramos had missed two penalties.
Ramos, who also became the most capped European player of all time, had scored all of his previous 25 penalties but was thwarted when Yann Sommer guessed the right way and repelled his spot kick in the 58th minute to preserve his side's lead.
LISBON — France handed defending Nations League champions Portugal a rare defeat on Saturday, winning 1-0 in Lisbon with N'Golo Kante's second-half strike to reach the competition's final four at the expense of the holders.
Kante scored only his second France goal in the 54th minute to leave them top of League A Group 3 with 13 points from five games, three ahead of Portugal and with the better head-to-head record to give themselves an unassailable lead.
Mexico scored three goals in four minutes to quickly turn a deficit into a 3-2 win over South Korea on Saturday at the Stadion Wiener Neustadt in Austria.
Raúl Jiménez, Uriel Antuna and Carlos Salcedo scored within minutes from the 67th to 70th minutes to erase an early goal created by Son Heung-min. The friendly was played in Austria without fans at the same stadium where the USMNT will face Panama on Monday.
AMSTERDAM — Netherlands coach Frank de Boer and his key striker Memphis Depay both insisted there was no alarm over the lack of goals from the Dutch team ahead of Sunday’s key Nations League tie against Bosnia in Amsterdam.
The Netherlands have netted only three goals in six internationals this year but Depay said the goals were certain to return.
“They will return, I have full confidence in that,” he told a news conference on Saturday.
BARRANQUILLA — Uruguay's Edinson Cavani scored early and fellow striker Luis Suarez converted a second-half penalty, his fourth in three games for his country, as they beat Colombia 3-0 in Friday’s World Cup qualifier.
Cavani got the opener in the fifth minute after Nahitan Nandez had done the hard work in midfield by robbing the ball and setting him up to fire home a low right-foot shot.
Gol de Edinson Cavani [5']
CAPE TOWN — Sierra Leone came from four goals down to hold Nigeria to a 4-4 draw in a dramatic Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in Benin City as the preliminaries for the 2022 finals continued on Friday.
Tunisia kept its 100 percent record in the qualifiers with a 1-0 home victory over Tanzania, while Morocco's Hakim Ziyech scored twice as they beat Central African Republic 4-1 but South Africa struggled before winning 2-0 at home to Sao Tome e Principe.
MADRID — Sergio Ramos is set to become the most capped European footballer of all time when Spain visit Switzerland in the Nations League on Saturday.
The Spain captain, who last year became his country's all-time appearance maker, is in line for a 177th match which will take him ahead of former Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon as the continent's most capped player.
Goran Pandev has been spearheading North Macedonia's attack for the best part of two decades and, though it seemed he was chasing a lost cause for much of that time, his persistence has been rewarded with their qualification for Euro 2020.
The 37-year-old, scorer of the winning goal against Georgia on Thursday which took North Macedonia to their first major tournament, has played under 14 different coaches, made 114 appearances and scored 36 goals since his debut against Turkey in 2001.
CAIRO — Liverpool striker Mohamed Salah has tested positive for the coronavirus on the eve of Egypt's Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Togo, the Egyptian Football Association said on Friday.
"The medical swab conducted on the mission of our first national football team showed that our international player, Mohamed Salah, the Liverpool star, was infected with the Coronavirus, after his test came back positive," the federation said in a statement on its Facebook page.