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LONDON. — Wayne Rooney equalled Bobby Charlton’s England goalscoring record as Roy Hodgson’s side beat San Marino 6-0 to become the first nation to secure qualification for Euro 2016 on Saturday.

Rooney opened the scoring in Serravalle from the penalty spot in the 13th minute, leaving him with an identical international record to 1966 World Cup-winner Charlton of 106 caps and 49 goals.

England added to that goal before the interval via a Cristian Brolli own goal, and Ross Barkley’s first goal for his country, along with late efforts from substitutes Theo Walcott, who scored twice, and Harry Kane completed a routine win.

“It’s a proud moment to equal Sir Bobby Charlton’s record,” Rooney told ITV. “My aim is to push on and try and help the team win on Tuesday (against Switzerland) and break the record.”

England have won all seven games in qualifying Group E and need only draw with the Swiss at Wembley to be sure of finishing in top spot. However, Switzerland make the trip buoyed by their remarkable performance in beating Slovenia 3-2 in Basel.

Slovenia looked set to claim a crucial win thanks to goals either side of half-time from Milivoje Novakovic and captain Bostjan Cesar. But the hosts were given hope when Borussia Moenchengladbach striker Josip Drmic came off the bench to pull a goal back in the 80th minute.

His fellow substitute Valentin Stocker equalised with six minutes to go and the stage was set for Drmic to score a dramatic winning goal four minutes into injury time. Estonia remain right in contention too after a second-half Konstantin Vassiljev strike secured a 1-0 win at home to Lithuania.

In Group C, defending European champions Spain took a big step towards returning to the finals by defeating Slovakia 2-0 in the northern city of Oviedo.

Slovakia travelled to Spain with a perfect record in qualifying but there was to be no repeat of their 2-1 victory when the sides met last year as Jordi Alba headed home from a superb David Silva ball inside five minutes. — AFP.