LONDON: Croatia and the Netherlands finished warming up for the World Cup in style by winning their last Nations League games to qualify for the Final Four tournament next year as holders France needed a favour to avoid relegation from the top tier on Sunday.

Croatia topped Group A1 by winning 3-1 in Austria to relegate the hosts to the second tier of the Nations League, while the unbeaten Dutch defeated visiting Belgium 1-0 and won Group A4 with 16 points — six more than second-placed Belgium.

Les Bleus lost 2-0 in Denmark to finish with just one win from their six group games, but the world champions avoided relegation because of Austria’s defeat.

It was the last match for the World Cup-bound teams before the competition starts in Qatar on Nov 20 and Didier Deschamps will be hoping to have a number of key men back from injury by the time France’s title defence begins against Australia on Nov 22.

“It was a young French team, which for the most part does not yet have experience of the highest level,” said Deschamps. “Tonight is a dose of reality and what will be waiting for us in two months.”

“We had a lot of chances, but we were not aggressive enough and made several technical mistakes,” added Deschamps, who had several first-choice players out injured including Paul Pogba, Karim Benzema, Jules Kounde, N’Golo Kante, Ousmane Dembele and Hugo Lloris.

“I’m not worried for the World Cup because we’ll get most of our injured players back in time. We don’t however think we’re stronger than the others and we know it’s going to be a big fight.”

France will also come up against the Danes in the group stage in Qatar and the Euro 2020 semi-finalists showed they are more than capable of causing more trouble in two months’ time.

Both goals came before half-time as Kasper Dolberg stretched to turn home Mikkel Damsgaard’s cross in the 34th minute before Andreas Skov Olsen volleyed in from the edge of the area as France’s inexperienced defense failed to deal with a corner and exposed goalkeeper Alphonse Areola.

France woke up in the second half but star striker Kylian Mba­ppe fluffed a one-on-one chance against goalkeeper Kaspel Schmeichel — Dolberg’s club teammate at Nice — and had two other tame efforts saved in quick succession.

Denmark’s win meant Croatia needed to get all three points in Austria to top the group.

The World Cup could be the last international tournament for 37-year-old Croatia midfielder Luka Modric, and he’s in good form. The Croats led after six minutes in Vienna when their veteran captain was left unmarked inside the penalty area and rifled home.

Austria equalized three minutes later through midfielder Christoph Baumgartner’s glancing header, but two goals in three second-half minutes proved decisive as Marko Livaja and Dejan Lovren headed in at the far post for Croatia, whose World Cup group includes Belgium, Canada and Morocco.

“Austria made our lives very hard, but in the end, the win was deserved,” said Modric. “I am very happy that we are in the top four.”

The Belgians needed to win by three goals away to the Netherlands to top Group A4 and lost 1-0, with Liverpool defender Virgil Van Dijk heading in the only goal 17 minutes from time at the Amsterdam Arena.

The victory did not best please Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal but he feels his side are well set for the World Cup.

“I assume that we will do better in possession at the World Cup,” Van Gaal told a news conference. “We were not very good against Belgium although without possession I thought we did well. That had to do with the form of the day and the quality of the opponent. Belgium is the number two in the world rankings for a reason. And it’s unbelievable that we have beaten them twice.”

The Netherlands also won 4-1 in Brussels in June as Van Gaal’s side face up to a World Cup group that has Qatar, Ecuador and Senegal.

“I think we are going to be a difficult opponent to go up against. We showed that if we are out played we can still be difficult to break down by playing more compact,” he said.

Poland won 1-0 in Wales in the other Group A4 game as the prolific Robert Lewandowski turned provider for strike partner Karol Swiderski around the hour mark. Last-place Wales is relegated.

Gareth Bale returned to the starting lineup to win his 108th cap and the Wales captain headed against the crossbar in stoppage time.

Wales manager Rob Page said relegation from the top tier was softened by the prospect of looking forward to his country’s first World Cup since 1958, with their opening game in Qatar against the United States on Nov 21.

Wales’ four Nations League games in June were split either side of a vital World Cup qualifying playoff against Ukraine, which forced Page to rest a number of key players for their 2-1 defeat in Poland to start the group.

“If you had said to me at the start of June that we would qualify for the World Cup and have it go down to one game to win to stay in League A, I would have taken that,” said Page. “The playoff final against Ukraine did have an impact on our games either side of it.”

Turkey were already guaranteed promotion from League C, but were still embarrassed by a 2-1 defeat to the Faroe Islands.

The Faroes led 2-0 through Viljormur Davidsen and Joan Edmundsson before Serdar Gurler’s late consolation for the side ranked 83 places higher in FIFA’s world rankings.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2022