European Qualifiers: France and Belgium confirm their World Cup places
Kylian Mbappé‘s first France hat-trick helped to confirm his side’s FIFA World Cup finals place, with Belgium also booking their trip to Qatar.
Belgium and France booked their places in the FIFA World Cup finals after victories on Saturday confirmed them as winners of their European Qualifiers groups, while the Netherlands blew a golden chance in Montenegro.
With Denmark and Germany already qualified ahead of Saturday’s fixtures, four of the ten automatic places are now taken, with the remaining six to be settled over the course of the final matchday.
The ten group runners-up will then compete for three more places via the play-offs, along with the two best group winners of the 2020/21 UEFA Nations League overall ranking that have neither qualified directly for the final tournament as European Qualifiers group winners, nor entered the play-offs already as European Qualifiers group runners-up.
Close-range finishes in the sixth and 12th minutes and a header after 32 minutes comprised the first international hat-trick of Kylian Mbappé’s career, and helped France to confirm their World Cup finals place with a resounding victory against Kazakhstan.
Karim Benzema struck twice after the break, before an Adrien Rabiot goal and an Antoine Griezmann penalty made it 7-0, on the night.
Not satisfied with becoming the first player to score three in a competitive game for France since Dominique Rocheteau in a 6-0 World Cup qualifying win against Luxembourg on 30 October 1985, Paris striker Mbappé got another late on to take his personal tally to four for the night.
No player has hit that many in a single game for Les Bleus since Just Fontaine got four against West Germany in the third-place play-off game at the 1958 World Cup finals.
Christian Benteke, Yannick Carrasco and Thorgan Hazard were on target as a 3-1 win against Estonia sealed Belgium’s place as Group E winners.
