Mbappe fires warning

Kylian Mbappe says holders France are going to next year's football World Cup finals to win it after he hit four goals in an 8-0 thrashing of Kazakhstan.

Mbappe had a first-half hat-trick in the rout at Parc des Princes as France booked their ticket to Qatar along with Belgium.

"The most important thing was qualification because we wanted to give ourselves the opportunity to defend our title," Mbappe said.

"A World Cup is a dream, an aim, it's everything. And it's a unique chance to play in a team that can win it. We are going over there to win it."

Karim Benzema scored twice and Adrien Rabiot and Antoine Griezmann were also on the scoresheet for France, who are guaranteed to top Group D of European qualifying.

Belgium, who were beaten by France in the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, made sure of their spot in Qatar by beating Estonia 3-1 in Brussels to top Group E.

Christian Benteke opened the scoring for the Belgians before Yannick Carrasco and Thorgan Hazard completed the job. Erik Sorga scored a consolation goal for the visitors.

Belgium coach Roberto Martinez said he hopes Eden Hazard, 30, is able to stay fit and play more regularly for Real Madrid after recovering from a series of long-standing injuries.

Belgium were semi-finalists at the last World Cup but disappointed at the European Championship with a quarter-final exit and finished fourth in the Nations League finals in Italy.

"We're in a situation where we always have to win everything," said Martinez. "That is what the outside world expects and it creates extra pressure ... We have now played 27 qualifiers. We won 25 of those. We should be happy."

But the Netherlands still have work to do after they threw away a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 with Group G opponents Montenegro in Podgorica.

Captain Virgil van Dijk blasted his team's second-half performance as "awful" and "outrageous."

The Dutch now need to get a result against Norway on Wednesday (HK time) to reach the finals for the first time since 2014.