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Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal and Antoine Griezmann's France booked spots at the 2018 World Cup finals on Tuesday while the Netherlands crashed out.


Portugal beat Switzerland 2-0 in Lisbon thanks to a Johan Djourou own goal and an Andre Silva strike.


France needed goals from Griezmann and Olivier Giroud in a hard-fought 2-1 win over Belarus at the Stade de France.


After a stuttering campaign Cheap Mike Miller Jersey , France's achievement in beating Bulgaria and Belarus in their final two qualifiers means they avoid the playoffs having had to go through that route for the last two finals.


""We have had a difficult route and tonight wasn't easy either but we've achieved our aim,"" coach Didier Deschamps said. ""We are happy, even if qualifying is logical given the quality of the players I have.""


The Dutch, World Cup finalists in South Africa in 2010 and semifinalists four years later, bowed to the inevitable as they failed to achieve the unlikely 7-0 scoreline over Sweden they needed to salvage a wretched qualifying effort.


Arjen Robben scored twice in a 2-0 win over the Swedes in Amsterdam and said afterward he was retiring from international soccer.


""I will always remember the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. Those are my best memories. During those two competitions we formed a real team Cheap Will Barton Jersey ,"" the 33-year-old Robben said.


In Lisbon, Portugal navigated a potentially fraught final fixture with Switzerland, who become one of the eight European nations who must fight through the playoffs for a spot in Russia.


The others are Italy, Denmark, Croatia Cheap Paul Millsap Jersey , Sweden, Northern Ireland, Greece and the Republic of Ireland.


The Swiss can consider themselves unlucky after winning all nine previous qualifiers but must now overcome a two-legged playoff in November to earn a fourth straight World Cup appearance.


Ronaldo, who was injured for the opening qualifying defeat in Basel, returned to the Portuguese lineup after coming off the bench to notch the opening goal in a lackluster 2-0 win in Andorra on Saturday.


US pop star Madonna was among the crowd at the Estadio da Luz which erupted when Djourou inadvertently bundled in a dangerous cross from Eliseu four minutes before the break under heavy pressure from Joao Mario.


Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva then exchanged passes with former Monaco teammate Joao Moutinho Cheap Jameer Nelson Jersey , threading through the return pass for an unmarked Andre Silva to poke in at the far post.


""We've never pretended to be the best in the world, but we're capable of going head to head against any opponents,"" Portugal coach Fernando Santos said.


Greece locked up second place behind Belgium in Group H courtesy of a 4-0 stroll against Gibraltar.

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TOKYO, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Tamaki Matsuoka could never forget about her first visit to Nanjing, China in August 1988 Cheap Emmanuel Mudiay Jersey , where she saw evidences of the atrocities committed by the invading Japanese army to the city in 1937 and was deeply shocked.


Matsuoka was then a primary school teacher and taught six-graders history in Japan. She found history textbooks vague and ambiguous about the invasive war against China and decided to find out more about the truth.


"The textbooks only mentioned that Japan lost the war, but nothing about the invasion, they described the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but miss out the sufferings of the people victimized by Japan's invasion," she told Xinhua in a recent interview.


"As a teacher Cheap Dikembe Mutombo Jersey , I taught the children about justice, but the textbooks in Japan seemed not just," she said.


When seeing for the first time in her life at an exhibition in Nanjing the evidences of the atrocities committed by the Japanese army, including photos of the heads cut down and the women raped, Matsuoka could not help shedding tears of pain and shame.


"I made up my mind at that time that I have to tell my students in Japan what had really happened Cheap Carmelo Anthony Jersey , and what pain and sorrow were associated with the historical truth," said Matsuoka.


Matsuoka spent the next 30 years interviewing hundreds of survivors and victimizers of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, and based on their testimonies, wrote books and produced documentaries to convey the historic truth.


The first testimony that Matsuoka heard from a victim was from Li Xiuying, who Cheap Allen Iverson Jersey , born in 1919, was stabbed 37 times by Japanese soldiers and lost her baby in the 1937 massacre.


To get testimonies from the victimizers was more difficult. It was not until eight years later that Matsuoka started interviewing Japanese war veterans, and Yoshiharu Matsumura was one of them.


"I interviewed him for over 20 times and witnessed the change of his attitude. At first, he showed little remorse, talking about the atrocities he committed with his fellow soldiers and showing off the spoil of war he plundered from China Cheap Alex English Jersey ," she said.


"But after seven or eight years, as he learned more about the tragedy he had brought to the victims, he started to feel sorry. He asked me at his deathbed to write down his war experience and let people know what had happened," she added.


Matsuoka hopes that more Japanese could find out the truth about the history through her books and documentaries and therefore learn from the history and prevent the wars from happening again.


"Without knowing the terror of the war, they can not understand the preciousness of the peace Wholesale Denver Nuggets Jerseys ," she said.


But the current situation in Japan worries Matsuoka, as people's historical view was led astray by the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has called for the younger generations not to be burdened by historical issues such as the "comfort women" issue.


"We have caused tremendous suffering to the people in other countries while suffering ourselves during the war. It would be selfish to just stress our own sufferings while trying to erase the fact that people of other coun. Cheap Jerseys Cheap Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys Wholesale Cheap Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys Shop Cheap Jerseys Free Shipping Wholesale Hats Wholesale Shirts China Wholesale T-shirts Free Shipping Cheap Hoddies Free Shipping