Italy remained perfect without Mario Balotelli. The Netherlands, meanwhile, still appears to be in a post-World Cup slump.
Giorgio Chiellini accounted for all three goals in Italy’s 2-1 win over Azerbaijan in European Championship qualifying Friday and World Cup semifinalist Netherlands labored to a surprisingly hard-earned 3-1 victory over 10-man Kazakhstan.
Also, World Cup quarterfinalist Belgium held target practice for a 6-0 victory over tiny Andorra.
GROUP A
Defender Renat Abdulin gave 127th-ranked Kazakhstan a shock lead at the Amsterdam Arena with a powerful 17th-minute header from a poorly-defended corner and the Netherlands had an anxious wait until the 62nd minute when substitute Klaas Jan Huntelaar leveled.
A deflected 82nd-minute shot by Ibrahim Afellay put the Dutch ahead before Robin van Persie’s penalty in the last minute secured the three points and coach Guus Hiddink’s first win in three matches.
In Istanbul, Umut Bulut gave Turkey the lead in the eighth minute but defender Tomas Sivok leveled seven minutes later when he headed in a corner. Borek Dockal gave the Czechs victory with a neat finish just before the hour mark.
latvia held Iceland goalless for more than an hour before Gylfi Sigurdsson opened the scoring in the 66th and Aron Gunnarsson and substitute Rurik Gislason completed the comfortable victory.
GROUP B
Group B is wide open after Friday’s matches with Wales taking the lead with four points from two games after a tough goalless draw at home against Bosnia-Herzegovina. Belgium and Israel both opened their campaign with victories to join Cyprus on three points.
Kevin De Bruyne and Dries Mertens scored two goals each for Belgium and Divock Origi and Nacer Chadli added the rest.
Israel also had a successful start, beating Cyprus in Nicosia 2-1 with goals from Omer Damari and Tal Ben Haim.
GROUP H
While Ciro Immobile and Simone Zaza provided the scoring last month for Italy, it was all Chiellini this time.
In Palermo, Azerbaijan defended with 10 men and Italy had trouble creating opportunities until Chiellini took advantage of an error by the goalkeeper to give the Azzurri the lead in the 44th.
Chiellini then scored into his own net in the 76th as he attempted to defend a corner kick but he made up for his error by heading in again in the 82nd.
In Bulgaria, Nikolay Bodurov scored an own goal for Croatia in the 36th.
Norway, which won 3-0 at Malta, got two goals from Blackburn forward Joshua King, who also set up the opening score from Mats Moller Daehli.