The national women’s team of Moldova became the winner of Group 1 in the first qualifying round of the UEFA Women’s Euro 2017 and thus qualified for the next stage of the competition, IPN reports.

In the last match of the group, the team trained by Alina Stetsenko beat Luxemburg 3-0, while Latvia and Lithuania drew 1-1. Claudia Chiper opened the score in the 13th minute. The same player doubled the advantage in the 86th minute, while Ludmila Andone set the score at 3-0 shortly afterward.

If Latvia had defeated Lithuania, Moldova would have finished second in the group. Within the mini-tournament hosted by our country, Moldova also won a 2-0 victory against Lithuania and suffered a 0-1 defeat to Latvia.

“It was hard because we performed at such a level for the first time. We managed to overcome the psychological barrier and this is important,” Moldova coach Alina Stetsenko told a news conference. “We hadn’t had a national seniors women’s team for almost 10 years. We saw the team spirit in the game and that qualification was deserved,” stated the president of the Moldovan Football Federation Pavel Cebanu.

Forty national teams qualified for the next stage of the competition. These will be divided into eight groups. The matches will take place between September 14, 2015 and September 20, 2016. The final tournament of the European Championship will be held in the Netherlands.