European soccer champion Italy secured victory in Germany’s Group A3 in the Nations League and thus qualified as the third team for the final round of the four group winners. The Squadra Azzurra won the group final against Germany’s conqueror Hungary 2-0 (1-0) and still intercepted the Magyars.
Before Italy, last Sunday, World Cup runners-up Croatia and ex-European champions Netherlands made it to the final tournament of the third edition of the Nations League next June. The fourth and last participant in the fight for the successor to the eliminated defending champion and world champion France will play the premiere winner Portugal and Germany’s World Cup preliminary round opponent Spain on Tuesday. As relegated to the B division, England, second in the European Championship, had already been confirmed before the final duel on Monday evening with the German team.
As in Leipzig, Hungary started with a Bundesliga quartet against Italy in Budapest. But midway through the first half, Giacomo Raspadori, who scored the winning goal in last Friday’s 1-0 win over England, sobered up the hosts with the visitors’ lead. Seven minutes after the break, Hungary’s dreams of reaching the final were shattered by Federico Dimarco’s goal to give the Italians a decisive 2-0 lead, with SC Freiburg’s Vincenzo Grifo on the bench.
Romania was relegated from the B Division in Group 3. Although the Carpathian team won against Bosnia-Herzegovina, who had already been promoted to the A Division, in Bucharest 4:1 (1:0), they were behind rivals Montenegro who had the same number of points because of the worse goal difference the disadvantage. Finland saved themselves with a 2-0 (0-0) win over the Montenegrins.
The Monday games in the third-class group C4 were only statistically significant after Georgia’s promotion to the B division and Gibraltar’s fixed participation in the so-called play-outs for the two relegated teams to the D class. The group winners prevailed 2-1 (1-0) at the bottom, while North Macedonia lost 0-1 (0-0) to Bulgaria. In Group 4 of the D-Division, too, Estonia’s ascent had been perfect even before the Balts finished 4-0 (1-0) at San Marino, who had no points at the bottom.