Euro 2012 Qualifying recap for June 3rd.

There were plenty of close matches all around with Kazakhstan edging Azerbaijan 2-1; a slightly depleted German side beat the home Austrian side by the same scoreline thanks to Mario Gomez's 44th and 90th minute strikes after Arne Friedrich had accidentally equalized for the Austrians in the 50th minute; and Belgium unluckily drawing with Turkey 1-1. Marvin Ogunjimi had put the Belgians into the lead in the 4th before Burak Yilmaz slotted home in the 22nd to bring the Turks level. However, Belgium had an excellent opportunity to go ahead in the 75th before Axel Witsel knocked a ball over the bar from the penalty spot. Heart-breaking stuff. Moving on to the Faroe Islands now where the home side were beaten 0-2 by a visiting squad from Slovenia. Despite the dismissal of Marko Suler in the 25th minute with a straight red card, Tim Matavz slotted home for the visitors first while an own goal from Rogvi Baldvinsson was enough to put the game to bed in the 47th minute. Onwards now, to Modena, Italy, where Italy hammered Estonia 3-0 thanks to goals from Giuseppe Rossi, Antonio Cassano, and Giampaolo Pazzini in the 21st, 39th, and 68th minutes respectively. By a similar scoreline Romania handed it to Bosnia and Herzegovina in Bucharest with Adrian Mutu scoring once and Ciprian Marica putting the ball into the back of the net twice to give the home side their second win in a row after a slow start in the competition. However, they have lost their coach of two years Razvan Lucescu. Meanwhile, Belarus were able to upset the progress of France as the two sides tied 1-1 with Eric Abidal scoring an own goal in the 20th minute to disadvantage his own side. Florent Malouda scored 2 minutes later in the correct goal to make it 1-1: a scoreline that wasn't broken. Over in Moldova, Sweden were ruthless as they beat the home side 1-4. Ola Toivonen opened the scoring in the 11th minute for Sweden while Johan Elmander struck in the 30th and 58th minutes before Igor Burgaev struck the Moldovans one back. Alexander Gerndt scored Sweden and the game's last goal in the 88th. San Marino v.s. Finland meanwhile was quite close as the visitors only edged the home side 0-1, but a win is a win! The Finns relied solely on the 41st minute strike from Mikael Forssell but it was enough. Croatia defeated Georgia 2-1 after falling behind very early in the first half. Jaba Kankava's 17th minute goal seemed to do the trick for Georgia for much of the game, but they were stopped short as Mario Mandzukic and Nikola Kalinic struck in quick succession to put the home side into the lead. (The winning goal actually came in the 78th minute while the sides were drawn level 2 minutes before.) Finally, Liechtenstein's 2-0 victory over Lithuania was well earned as the home side were put ahead in the 7th by Philippe Erne while Michele Polverino tacked on a second in the 36th to give the home side their first competitive victory in almost 4 years!