SPAIN SHOWED WHAT they can do without Fernando Torres or David Villa by putting five past Venezuela without reply in their international friendly in Malaga.
Roberto Soldado marked his first appearance for La Roja since 2007 with a clinical hat-trick, while David Silva and Andres Iniesta were also on the scoresheet as the home side dominated their less illustrious opponents.
Another of Ireland’s Group C opponents, Italy, suffered defeat at the hands of The United States, losing 1-0 in Genoa.
Fulham’s Clint Dempsey scored the lone goal of the game early in the second half, and despite a flurry of activity from the home side, the Americans held out for the win at the Stadio Luigi Ferraris.
In Croatia, their match with Sweden was tied at half-time after Jonas Olsson’s own goal had cancelled out Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s early penalty, before a second-half double from Sunderland’s Sebastian Larsson wrapped up the win for the Swedes against Slaven Bilic’s men.
Here is Soldado’s third goal in Malaga:
YouTube credit: LIK34B055
Elsewhere, Arjen Robben scored a brilliant double, including a late winner, to resist England’s late comeback in a 3-2 win for the Dutch.
Despite playing well within themselves for nearly an hour, outstanding attacking play by the Dutch in the second half exposed England’s fragility in what is likely to be caretaker manager Stuart Pearce’s first and only match in charge.
Trailing 2-0 after goals from Robben and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, England pulled a goal back in the 85th minute when Gary Cahill appeared from nowhere in the centre-forward’s position to guide the ball calmly through the legs of the Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg.
France’s revival under Laurent Blanc continued as they inflicted a 2-1 defeat upon Germany in their international friendly in Bremen.
Olivier Giroud scored just 21 minutes into his international debut, before Chelsea’s Florent Malouda gave France a deserved second on 69 minutes.
Cacau did manage to pull one back for the hosts in the dying minutes, but it was more than Germany deserved after a disappointing performance against the revitalised French.
And finally, Lionel Messi led Argentina to a 3-1 win over Switzerland by scoring his first international hat-trick.
