Thierry Henry in Paris on Wednesday. (AFP)

London: Germany recorded the biggest victory in the history of the European Championship when they crushed San Marino 13-0 in a Group D qualifier on Wednesday.

Lukas Podolski netted four, while Miroslav Klose, Thomas Hitzlsperger and Bastian Schweinsteiger scored twice each.

This was Germany’s biggest competitive win outside Olympic soccer and smashed the old competition record set when Spain beat Malta 12-1 in a qualifier nearly 23 years ago.

France beat Italy 3-1 in their Group B match in Paris in a quick re-run of the World Cup final when the Italians beat them on penalties to become world champions.

Sidney Govou scored twice for France and Thierry Henry got their other goal while Alberto Gilardino scored for the world champions.

Scotland maintained their good start in the same group with a 2-1 win over Lithuania in Kaunas.

England overcame Macedonia 1-0 in Group E to record their second successive win and make their best start to a qualifying competition for 10 years. Peter Crouch scored the only goal to take his tally for England to 11 in his last 10 matches.

The Netherlands also maintained their 100 per cent start in Group G with a 3-0 win over Belarus in Eindhoven with two goals from Robin van Persie and one from Dirk Kuyt.

There was a big shock in Belfast where Northern Ireland, who lost 0-3 at home to Iceland on Saturday, recovered to beat Spain 3-2 in Group F with David Healy scoring a hattrick.

The result evoked memories of one of Northern Ireland’s greatest wins — a 1-0 victory over Spain in the 1982 World Cup finals — and was the biggest upset of the night.

Georgia looked like they would have that honour when they led Ukraine 2-1 in their Group B match with 30 minutes to go, but the hosts hit back to win 3-2 with goals from Ruslan Rotan and Andriy Rusol.

Turkey beat Malta 2-0 in their Group C match in Frankfurt and Israel swamped ndorra 4-1 in their Group E game.

Denmark scored a 2-0 win away to Iceland in Group F while Czech Republic beat Slovakia 3-0 in Bratislava in their Group D derby.

Poland drew 1-1 with Serbia in Group A while Hungary came back from their 4-1 home defeat by Norway to win their Group C match 3-1 in Bosnia.

Meanwhile, Blaz Sliskovic resigned as Bosnia coach on Thursday, a day after his team lost 3-1 to Hungary in qualifying for the European Championship. (Agencies)