World Cup champion France, meanwhile, was held to a scoreless draw at home with Ukraine. For Spain, like England and Germany, it was a fresh start under new coach Jose Antonio Camacho.

``There was a lot of pressure on the german team because they've come in for heavy criticism and they were clearly very nervous following on from the defeat to the US,'' German soccer idol Franz Beckenbauer said.``So this was a very important win for them.''

Results Group I: Italy 2 (Filippo Inzaghi, Antonio Conte) bt Denmark 1 (Ebbe Sand) in Copenhagen;Switzerland 1 (Sebastien Fournier) bt Belarus 0 in Minsk.

Group II: Norway 2 (Ole Gunnar Solskjaer 2) bt Greece 0 in Athens; Slovenia 1 (Zaza Dzanashia) drew with Georgia 1 (Zlatko Zahovic)Group III: Turkey 2 (Hakan Sukur, Sergen Yalcin) bt Moldova 0 in Istanbul; Germany 3 (Marco Bode 2, Dietmar Hamann) bt Northern Ireland 0 in Belfast.Group IV: France 0 drew with Ukraine 0 in Saint-Dennis; Russia 3 (Valery Karpin 2, Vladimir Bestchastnykh) bt Armenia 0 in Yerevan; Iceland 2 (Eyjolfur Sverrisson, Steinar Adolfsson) bt Andorra 0 in Andorra la Vella.Group V: Sweden 2 (Johan Mjallby, Henrik Larsson) bt Luxembourg 0 in Goteborg; England 3 (Paul Scholes 3) bt Poland 1 (Jerzy Brzeczek) in WembleyGroup VI: Spain 9 (Raul Gonzalez 4, Ismael Urzaiz 2, Fran Javier Gonzalez 1, Fernando Hierro 1, Peter Schoettel self goal) bt Austria 0 in Valencia.Group VII: Portugal 7 (Joao Pinto 2, Pauleta 2, Luis Figo, Paulo Madeira, Sergio Conceicao) bt Azerbaijan 0 at Guimaraes; Slovakia 0 drew with Romania in Bucharest; Hungary 5(Vilmos Seboek 3, Jozsef Seboek, Bela Illes) bt Liechtenstein 0 in Budapest.

Group VIII: Macedonia vs Ireland and Yugoslavia vs Croatia postponed because of Nato air strike.

Group IX: Czech Republic 2 bt Lithuania 0 (Michal Hornak, Patrik Berger) in Teblice.

Scotland had its home match yesterday against Bosnia postponed because of Nato air strikes

Bulgaria 1 (Hristo Yovov) bt Belgium 0 in Brussels.