England thrash Greece as France and Italy reach Nations League quarter-finals

England moved into top spot in Nations League Group B2 as Curtis Jones’ superb finish completed a 3-0 victory over Greece in Athens.

Jones produced a beautiful flicked effort with seven minutes of normal time to go, adding to Ollie Watkins’ early opener and a 77th-minute Odysseas Vlachodimos own goal.

Playing their penultimate game under interim boss Lee Carsley – who started captain Harry Kane on the bench – ahead of Thomas Tuchel taking charge in January, the Three Lions leapfrogged Greece into first place and can now seal it, and promotion to League A, with victory over the Republic of Ireland at Wembley on Sunday.

The Republic are guaranteed to finish third in the pool, sending them into a play-off in March where they will bid to avoid relegation to League C.

Heimir Hallgrimsson’s men beat Finland 1-0 in Dublin, with Evan Ferguson netting the only goal just before the interval and Caoimhin Kelleher then saving a Joel Pohjanpalo penalty.

Italy secured qualification for the quarter-finals as Sandro Tonali’s early finish gave the Azzurri a 1-0 win over Belgium in Brussels.

Tonali put the visitors ahead with an 11th-minute finish, the Newcastle midfielder opening his international account with his first goal since returning to action this season after serving a 10-month ban for breaching gambling rules.

Late efforts to hit back from the hosts included Romelu Lukaku sending a header wide and Wout Faes seeing another come back off a post as Group A2 leaders Italy guaranteed a top-two spot and third-placed Belgium’s hopes of taking one ended.

Luciano Spalletti’s men are joined in the last eight by France, who were held 0-0 at home by Israel and trail the Italians by three points ahead of the sides meeting at the San Siro on Sunday.

In Group B3, Austria went top with a 2-0 away win over Kazakhstan, who had Alexander Marochkin sent off between goals from Christoph Baumgartner and Michael Gregoritsch.

Norway are second, three points clear of Slovenia, after thumping them 4-1 in Ljubljana, with Antonio Nusa scoring twice and Erling Haaland also on the scoresheet.

North Macedonia sealed promotion to the second tier as they defeated Latvia 1-0 away in Group C4, in which there was also a 1-0 win for the Faroe Islands in Armenia.