PARIS: The Netherlands recorded a morale-boosting win in qualifying for Euro 2016 on Sunday while Italy saw their perfect start to the campaign ended by Croatia in an eventful encounter.

Guus Hiddink had indicated that he would resign as coach of the Dutch if they slipped up against Latvia to continue a stuttering start to their bid to reach the finals in France.

However, the World Cup semi-finalists recorded their second win in four games in Group ‘A’ by thumping Latvia 6-0 in Amsterdam as the outstanding Arjen Robben and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar both scored twice.

Captain Robin van Persie and Jeffrey Bruma were also on target to ensure that Hiddink — only appointed for a second spell in charge of the Oranje in the summer — would not be going anywhere.

The only blotch on an otherwise fine evening for the Netherlands was the knee injury that forced Manchester United midfielder Daley Blind off in the first half, although Hiddink’s side continue to trail group leaders the Czech Republic by six points.

The Czechs moved atop Group ‘A’ with four wins from four by beating Iceland 2-1 in Plzen thanks to a Pavel Kaderabek header in first-half injury time and a second-half own goal by Jon Dadi Bodvarsson.

Iceland, who dropped to second following their first defeat in qualifying, had taken an early lead through Ragnar Sigurdsson.

Turkey recorded their first win in Group ‘A’ by beating Kazakhstan 3-1 in Istanbul as Burak Yilmaz scored twice for Fatih Terim’s struggling side. The result lifted Turkey off the bottom of the group into fourth place. Kazakhstan are last, with just one point from four qualifiers.

After all the fireworks at the San Siro, Italy and Croatia settled for a 1-1 draw and remained level atop Group ‘H’.

The match had to be suspended for 10 minutes late in the second half after Croatia fans threw fireworks onto the pitch. Riot police went into the stands and eventually the last 17 minutes were played. There was a shorter disruption under similar circumstances in the first half.

“I’m saddened by the fans’ behavior,” Croatia coach Niko Kovac said. “I already apologised on the pitch and I apologise again, to everyone. I’m sorry.

“I didn’t know what to do. I don’t have words now. There were kids there. This is not football. This is not a fair image of our country or our people.”

Antonio Candreva scored his first goal for Italy against the run of play in the 11th minute but Croatia levelled just four minutes later through Ivan Perisic following a mistake from Italy goalkeeper and captain Gianluigi Buffon.

Croatia had several glaring misses, while Italy struggled to carve out clear scoring opportunities.

Italy and Croatia are level on 10 points atop the section after four games, with Norway a point behind after a 1-0 win in Azerbaijan thanks to a solitary goal by Borussia Moenchengladbach’s Havard Nordtveit.

Malta picked up their first point with a 1-1 draw away to Bulgaria, who moved onto four points.

Andrej Galabinov gave Bulgaria the perfect start in the sixth minute but Clayton Failla levelled from the spot in the 49th after Veselin Minev fouled Jean-Paul Farrugia.

Elsewhere, Wales extended their unbeaten start in Group ‘B’ with a battling performance to hold World Cup quarter-finalists Belgium to a 0-0 draw in Brussels.

Nicolas Lombaerts hit the post for the group favourites with a first-half shot, but the Dragons held out.

“There are six games to play and that’s a lot of points and teams will be chasing us down. But we’re definitely on the right track,” said Wales manager Chris Coleman.

The Welsh are second in the group with eight points from four games, one point behind Israel, who were convincing 3-0 winners at home to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Gil Vermouth and Omer Damari gave Israel a comfortable half-time lead before Toni Sunjic of Bosnia was red-carded early in the second half and Eran Zahavi closed out the scoring.

George Efrem scored a hat trick as Cyprus beat Andorra 5-0 to move to six points from four games.

Published in Dawn, November 18th , 2014