Spain breeze, France stunned at Euro 2012 qualifications

Newly-crowned World Cup champions Spain began their European title defending campaign Friday with a comfortable win, while England, the Netherlands and Germany all won but France lost.

Vicente del Bosque's players crushed the 141-ranked Liechtenstein 4-0 in a Group I game in Vaduz to mark their first competitive outing since topping the world in South Africa last July.

Liverpool striker Fernando Torres scored twice, at 18 and 54 minutes, and David Villa and David Silva added the other two, respectively on 26 and 62 mintues.

In the other match in Group I on Friday, Lithuania and Scotland played out a goalless draw.

Losing World Cup finalists Netherlands got an easy 5-0 win over San Marino, Germany earned a hard-fought 1-0 win in Belgium, and Turkey overcame Kazakhstan 3-0 in Guus Hiddink's first competitive match in charge.

England and Italy have both put disappointing World Cup campaigns behind as the former beat Bulgaria 4-0 and the Italians defeated Estonia 2-1.

Portugal, however, were held at home in an eight-goal game with Cyprus, and Laurent Blanc began his reign over France with a 1-0 home defeat to Belarus, Sergei Kislyak scoring the only goal for Belarus in Group D.

Among other Euro 2012 qualifying matches, there were wins for Sweden, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Northern Ireland.

Source:Xinhua