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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Captain Eden Hazard scored twice to save Belgium's goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and secure a 3-1 victory over Russia in their Euro 2020 qualifying match, Group I, on Sunday. King Baudouin Stadium, Thursday.
Courtois allowed Russia to tie the match after Denis Cheryshev lost a goal, but Belgium earned a deserved victory when Yuri Tielemans opened the scoring with his first international goal and Hazard added two more. plus, one of the penalty.
Striker Michy Batshuayi was asked to lead the line in the absence of the injured Romelu Lukaku, while the Hazard brothers, Eden and Thorgan, played together for the third time in the jersey. National team.
Belgium led for 15 minutes when the pbad of Timothy Castagne gave the advantage to Tielemans on the edge of the surface. As Russia's defensive line opened, the midfielder shot a low shot for goalkeeper Guilherme Marinato.
But the advance lasted barely a minute and Courtois' horror error gave Cheryshev the balance.
The keeper remained in possession of the ball after a back pbad and, pushed to the ground, pbaded the ball directly to Cheryshev on the edge of the area which ended in an empty goal.
Batshuayi nearly recovered the advantage when the Hazard brothers led a breakaway from a Russian corner and the ball fell under the weight of the attacker in the area, his shot was beating Marinato but not the defender Georgiy Dzhikiya on the gallin.
The Belgians, World Cup semifinalists last year, scored their second goal just before the break, when Eden Hazard fouled the area, and accelerated to convert the shot to the goal and give to his team a 2-1 lead at halftime.
Batshuayi should have added a third for his home team when he was not scored and put a low center to the post at eight meters.
The Hazard crew scored the third goal when they recovered the ball into the box after Batshuayi's shot was blocked and the visitors finished with 10 points, after a late red card for Aleksandr Golovin.
Earlier, Cyprus advanced to Group I with a 5-0 win over San Marino in Nicosia.
Striker Pieros Sotiriou converted two penalties to go with the goals of Ioannis Kousoulos, Georgios Efrem and Konstantinos Laifis.
(Nick Said's report, edited by Ed Osmond)
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