{"id":266712,"date":"2025-11-16T21:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T21:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/266712\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T21:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T21:40:09","slug":"world-cup-qualifying-roundup-portugal-qualify-with-9-1-rout-of-armenia-world-cup-2026-qualifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/266712\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup qualifying roundup: Portugal qualify with 9-1 rout of Armenia | World Cup 2026 qualifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portugal qualified for the 2026 World Cup on Sunday with a 9-1 hammering of Armenia in Porto that included hat-tricks from both Bruno Fernandes and Jo\u00e3o Neves. The reigning Nations League champions were forced to wait to book an automatic spot after losing 2-0 against the Republic of Ireland<\/a> on Thursday in a game where their captain, Cristiano Ronaldo, was sent off.<\/p>\n

However, Roberto Mart\u00ednez\u2019s side needed no help from their all-time top scorer in a one-sided match that assured them top spot in Group F with 13 points, giving Ronaldo the opportunity to play at a record sixth World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing was qualifying for the World Cup. For me, as I always say, the team always comes before the individual,\u201d Neves told RTP after opening his account for Portugal<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m very happy to have scored my first goal for the national team, and my second and third as well. I\u2019m happy to be able to share the pitch with great players and a great team.\u201c<\/p>\n

Portugal opened the scoring when defender Renato Veiga scored a close-range header in the seventh minute but they were stunned when Eduard Spertsyan converted a cross from Grant-Leon Ranos 11 minutes later. It was only Armenia\u2019s third goal in the qualifying group having failed to score in their previous three games.<\/p>\n

However, any hopes of an upset were quickly extinguished as Gon\u00e7alo Ramos restored Portugal\u2019s lead while Neves added two goals before half-time, including a superb free-kick into the top corner. Fernandes then converted a penalty in first-half added time to make it 5-1 at the break.<\/p>\n

The second half continued in the same pattern as Fernandes struck again soon after the restart after he was set up by Ramos. A flurry of substitutions followed but Portugal\u2019s pressure never relented and when they earned another penalty, Fernandes completed his hat-trick.<\/p>\n

Neves then added his third goal of the night with a composed finish after Portugal hit the post while, at the other end, goalkeeper Diogo Costa and the Portuguese defence comfortably kept Armenia at bay.<\/p>\n

Francisco Concei\u00e7\u00e3o then added the icing on the cake with a long-range strike in added time as Portugal completed the rout.<\/p>\n

The Armenia goalkeeper Henri Avagyan possibly wants the pitch to swallow him up after Bruno Fernandes scores Portugal\u2019s sixth goal. Photograph: Miguel Riopa\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a young team and we are not ready to play against teams as powerful as Portugal. After games like this, we will be stronger in the future,\u201d the Armenia coach Yegishe Melikyan said. \u201cWe made mistakes that mentally broke our team and we were not expecting the errors that occurred for Portugal\u2019s second and third goals. We aren\u2019t yet mentally prepared for these sorts of games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland finished second in the group with 10 points to clinch a playoff berth after they beat Hungary 3-2<\/a> with a last-gasp goal in the sixth minute of added time.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s Oleksandr Zubkov powered home a header late in the second half and Oleksii Hutsuliak added a second goal to book their spot in the playoffs as they beat Group D rivals Iceland 2-0.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n

Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

The two sides were level on points heading into the match but Ukraine<\/a> needed the win to earn second spot behind group winners France, with Iceland boasting a better goal difference.<\/p>\n

Midfielder Zubkov delivered with his first international goal for three years in the 83rd minute and Hutsuliak\u2019s stoppage-time effort made the result safe.<\/p>\n

A second-string France side overcome a nervous start to beat Azerbaijan 3-1 away and wrap up their campaign. Coach Didier Deschamps rotated his entire lineup after Les Bleus sealed their spot against Ukraine on Thursday.<\/p>\n

France top Europe\u2019s Group D with 16 points from six games after goals by Jean-Philippe Mateta and Maghnes Akliouche plus an own goal from Shakhruddin Magomedaliyev helped them recover from Renat Dadashov\u2019s opener.<\/p>\n

In the night matches, Norway will complete the formality of qualification by avoiding a nine-goal defeat away to Italy at San Siro. Elsewhere, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo meet in Morocco to decide which African team enters March\u2019s intercontinental playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Portugal qualified for the 2026 World Cup on Sunday with a 9-1 hammering of Armenia in Porto that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-266712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}