Spain warmed up for their World Cup campaign with a comfortable 4-1 win over Lawrie McMenemy's Northern Ireland in Santander last night. Spain's win was one of the more impressive victories on a night when a host of World Cup countries were in action.
The Irish defence was breached on 30 minutes thanks to a piece of astute play by Sergi. He caught the visitors sleeping when he released Raul with a quickly-taken free-kick and the Real Madrid striker centred for Pizzi to score. Pizzi netted his eighth goal on his 21st international appearance when he headed home Etxeberria's corner in the 37th minute.
But then Northern Ireland surprisingly reduced the deficit when Canizares missed Michael Hughes's cross and Gerry Taggart headed home his seventh goal for his country.
Substitute Fernando Morientes, who replaced Pizzi at half-time, restored Spain's two-goal advantage when he raced through to score his third international goal in only his second game. Morientes continued his fantastic start to his international career when he headed home Spain's fourth and his second on 66 minutes.
A spectacular 30-metre drive from Marc Wilmots helped Belgium to a 2-0 victory over a disappointing Colombia in Brussels. The defeat was a fresh setback for the Colombians after Saturday's 3-1 defeat at the hands of Germany.
A Danny Boffin header and Wilmots drive put the Belgians in control after only half an hour and Colombia, who are in England's first-round group in France, never looked like getting back into it.
Romania made hard work of beating Paraguay 3-2 in Bucharest. Romanian striker Adrian Ilie opened the scoring after four minutes following a defensive error before Jose Cardoso equalised in the 27th minute capitalising on another defensive error, this time by Cristian Dulca.
Ilie and Roberto Acuna both scored before Hagi, in fine form throughout the match, hit the winner from the spot in the 83rd minute after a foul by Francisco Arce on Gheorghe Craioveanu.
Croatia beat Iran in Rijeka thanks to goals from Robert Prosinecki and Davor Suker. Prosinecki opened the scoring on 30 minutes from a 25-metre free-kick and Suker, the top scorer of the Croatian side, scored from about six metres out in the 77th minute. It was Iran's last friendly match before the World Cup. Croatia meet Australia in Zagreb on Saturday.
Brazil had a 3-0 victory over Andorra in a relaxed run-out in France. Giovanni opened the score, his Barcelona team-mate Rivaldo doubled the tally and Cafu hit the third eight minutes after the break.
Sepp Blatter, one of two contenders for the presidency of soccer's world governing body, FIFA, has promised to bring the World Cup to Africa in 2006 if he is elected next week. "I will not give you all my programmes for Africa, but what I can promise, which will be a reality, is that if I am elected president of FIFA, I will give the 2006 World Cup to Africa," Blatter said yesterday in Liberia. Blatter is up against European Football Union (UEFA) chief Lennart Johansson in the battle to succeed Joao Havelange as president, to be resolved at the FIFA congress in Paris next Monday.
