France go from bad to worse in Belarus defeat

Published on Friday 3 September 2010 21:01

France's football misery only got worse last night when they followed up their World Cup debacle with an embarrassing 1-0 loss at home to Belarus in their opening qualifier for the 2012 European Championship, with Sergei Kislyak scoring in the 86th minute to stun the Stade de France crowd.

With new coach Laurent Blanc taking over from Raymond Domenech, France were facing their home fans on Friday for the first time since its disastrous World Cup performance and struggled to create chances in front of a largely supportive crowd. They were caught cold when Vyacheslav Hleb skillfully weaved his way into the right of the penalty area and pulled the ball back for Kislyak, who beat goalkeeper Hugo Lloris with a powerful shot into the top right corner.

Portugal were also left red-faced. The Group H favourites were held to a 4-4 draw by Cyprus in Guimaraes. First-half goals from Efstathios Aloneftis and Michael Constantinou for Cyprus were cancelled out by Portugal's Hugo Almeida and Raul Meireles, the new Liverpool midfield player.

The home team then led through Danny and Manuel Fernandes in the second period, but Yiannis Okkas and Andreas Avraam, who scored the eighth goal of the match in the 88th minute, drew Cyprus level and earned them an unexpected point.

Pavel Pogrebnyak scored twice as Dick Advocaat's Russia opened their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign with a low-key 2-0 win over Andorra in Group B., while Alexander Suvorov and Anatolie Doros scored second-half goals in the space of six minutes saw Moldova beat Finland 2-0 in Group E. In Group A, Turkey scored two goals within three minutes en route to a 3-0 win over Kazakhstan, while Miroslav Klose scored in Germany's 1-0 win in Belgium.