Germany remained on track for Euro 2012 qualification with an away victory in Kazakhstan Tuesday while Turkey's chances took a knock with a surprise defeat to Azerbaijan, dpa reported.
Joachim Loew's side enjoyed a 3-0 win in their Group A encounter in Astana, a result that gives Germany a maximum 12 points from four games, six clear of Turkey, who crashed 1-0 in Baku to a 39th minute goal from Rashad Farhad Sadygov.
All three of Germany's goals were scored in the second half with Miroslav Klose opening the scoring in the 48th minute to register his third goal in two games. Substitute Mario Gomez added a second in the 78th and Lukas Podolski put the final touch to the game five minutes from the end.
Coach Loew said that he was pleased with the result although he was slightly disappointed with the way his team played.
"We achieved what we wanted to do, but obviously some errors occurred," he said.
"We have a lead at the top and that is comfortable, but we still need to win a few games before we can plan for the finals."
Austria can close the gap to Germany to three points later Tuesday with a victory against Belgium.
Armenia have seven points from three matches in Group B after coasting to a 4-0 win over Andorra. Gevorg Ghazaryan put the Armenians ahead after just four minutes and further efforts from Henrik Mkhitaryan, Yura Movsisyan and Marcos Pizzelli secured the victory.
There was a major shock in Group C as the Faroe Islands earned their first point of the campaign with a 1-1 draw at home to Northern Ireland.
Christian Holst put the islanders in front on the hour mark but Kyle Lafferty denied Brian Kerr's side a famous win with an equalizer for Northern Ireland 14 minutes from time.
The draw denied the Northern Irish, who held Italy to a draw on Friday, a chance to pull level at the top of the group with the four- time world champions.
In a Group E game, Mikael Forssell thought he had given Finland a late equalizer against Hungary as he levelled Adam Szalai's 50th minute opener for the visitors four minutes from the end, but Balazs Dzsudzsak gave Hungary the victory with an injury-time winner.
Hungary, with nine points from four matches, lead the group from the Dutch, who have a maximum nine points from three games and would pull three clear of the Hungarians if they beat Sweden later Tuesday.
Georgia missed the chance to draw level with Croatia at the top of Group F by only managing a 1-1 draw with Latvia. David Siradze put Georgia ahead but Aleksandrs Cauna snatched a last-minute equalizer for Latvia.
In Group D, goals from Vitali Rodionov and substitute Sergei Krivets secured a 2-0 win for Belarus over Albania, who finished the match with 10 men following the injury-time dismissal of Armend Dallku.
The Czech Republic got their first victory in Group I with a 2-0 defeat of lowly Liechtenstein courtesy of goals from Tomas Necid and Vaclav Kadlec while in Group H goals from Morten Rasmussen and Kasper Lorentzen saw Denmark defeat Cyprus by the same scoreline.