LONDON: The Netherlands and Italy needed late equalisers to earn draws in Euro 2016 qualifying on Saturday, while a pair of goals plus an assist by Gareth Bale inspired Wales to a fine win in Israel that left them top of their group.

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored in injury time to cancel out Burak Yilmaz’s first-half strike as the Netherlands drew with Turkey 1-1 in Amsterdam with the draw leaving the Dutch in third place in Group ‘A’, five points behind second-placed Iceland and two points ahead of Turkey.

Group leaders Czech Republic also left it late to steal a point with Vaclav Pilar’s equalizer in the last minute of regulation time earning a 1-1 draw against Latvia in Prague after Aleksejs Visnakovs had given the away side the lead.

They are a point ahead of Iceland, who won 3-0 in Kazakhstan with Birkir Bjarnason scoring twice after veteran forward Eidur Gudjohnsen put them ahead in Astana.

Antonio Conte’s Italy are in a rather more comfortable position than the Netherlands and remain unbeaten in Group ‘H’ after Eder scored the key goal on debut to secure a 2-2 draw with Bulgaria in Sofia.

Yordan Minev’s early own goal gave the Azzurri the lead, but Ivelin Popov and Ilian Micanski both scored for Bulgaria in the opening 17 minutes to turn the game on its head.

Still, Italy dropped two points behind Croatia in the group after Croatia routed Norway 5-1 in Zagreb with goals from Marcelo Brozovic, Ivan Perisic, Ivica Olic, Gordon Schildenfeld and Danijel Pranjiic.

Elsewhere in the group, Azerbaijan moved off the bottom by defeating Malta 2-0 in Baku in former Croatia star Robert Prosinecki’s first game as coach.

Bale scored a second-half brace having set up Aaron Ramsey to give Wales the lead late in the first half in Haifa as they moved to 11 points, two more than Israel who lost their perfect winning record.

Belgium can go level on points with Wales if they win their game in hand in Israel on Tuesday, after the Red Devils eased to a 5-0 victory over Cyprus in Brussels. Marouane Fellaini scored twice with Christian Benteke, Eden Hazard and Michy Batshuayi also on target.

Bosnia and Herzegovina claimed a much-needed win in their first match under Mehmed Bazdarevic as Edin Dzeko’s hat-trick secured a 3-0 success in Andorra.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2015

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