Turkey beat Russia while Italy win over Poland in UEFA Nations League

Turkey have defeated Russia 3-2 in a UEFA Nations League group match, getting its first victory this year.

Denis Cheryshev scored the opener in the 11th minute for Russia at Istanbul's Ulker stadium on Sunday.

But, Andrei Semenov was shown a red card for fouling Turkish forward Cenk Tosun in the 24th minute.

Turkey managed to equalise the game with Kenan Karaman's header in the 26th minute, while Cengiz Under gave his team the lead, making it 2-1, in the 32nd minute.

The first half ended with a 2-1 score.

In the second half, Ozan Tufan was fouled in Russia's penalty area, giving Turkey the penalty kick.

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Cenk Tosun successfully converted the penalty to make the score 3-1 for Turkey in the 51st minute.

Six minutes later, Daler Kuzyaev scored to narrow the lead to one.

Following this result, Turkey remained in third place with six points, with Russia still atop Group 3 of League B with eight points.

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Depleted Italy wins over Poland

Italy brushed off the absences of several players and coach Roberto Mancini with an impressive 2-0 victory over a toothless Poland outfit on Sunday to close in on a UEFA Nations League finals place.

The Azzurri took top spot in Group A1 from the Netherlands, who beat Bosnia and Herzegovina earlier in the day, by seeing off previous table-toppers Poland in Reggio Emilia.

Italy will be sure of a place in next October's finals with victory over the Bosnians in Sarajevo on Wednesday.

Assistant coach Alberico Evani was again in charge for Italy, with Mancini watching from home after testing positive for coronavirus.

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An original 41-man Italy squad for this international break had already been whittled down to 28, due to injuries, as well as positive and inconclusive Covid-19 tests.

"It's our culture, Italians give their best during difficult moments and become more united," Evani told RAI Sport.

"It's what I asked of these lads before the game and they were extraordinary."

In total, 20 players who may have been in contention to play were unavailable.

"The more days went on, the more players kept leaving the camp, but we said to ourselves that we had to be even more united through these obstacles," striker Andrea Belotti said.

"It was a great performance and we proved that we were superior to Poland in every way this evening."

After a cagey start to the game, Grzegorz Krychowiak bundled Andrea Belotti to the ground at a set-piece to concede a penalty.

Chelsea midfielder Jorginho stepped up to send goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny the wrong way with his trademark hop, despite having missed two spot-kicks for his club this season.

Belotti wasted a good chance to double the Italian advantage, voll eying Lorenzo Insigne's dinked free-kick over the crossbar.

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Bayern Munich star Robert Lewandowski, who has already scored 15 goals this season for club and country, cut a frustrated figure for Poland, only making an impact when he appeared to elbow Alessandro Bastoni and was perhaps fortunate VAR was not being used.

Poland barely seemed interested in even trying to find an equaliser, not managing a single shot on target in the match.

Their task was made harder in the 77th minute when Jacek Goralski was given a second yellow card for bringing down Belotti.

Italy finally scored the second goal they deserved with six minutes remaining after a lovely passing move, with Domenico Berardi firing in from Insigne's pass.