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Friday, August 18, 2006

International Duty

So, you ask, how did our 18 ( sorry, forgot Cory Gibbs yesterday ) international stars do this week playing for their countries? Eager to find out I've surfed, dug and otherwise investigated to see how our wide variety of talent and nationalities got on.

Darren Bent and Luke Young were there for England but only Darren made it off the bench and played for palty a 12 minutes. You know better than I if he made any impact whatsoever or even touched the ball.

For Eire, our new recruit Andy Reid is currently injured or should it be unavailable, possibly a euphemism "for sorry I can't make it, busy getting transferred" and did not play in Dublin and of course Matt Holland has retired a couple of years back.

Their opponents in Dublin, Holland, had no need for the services of the 34 year-old Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink cruising to a 4-0 win on Wednesday. The worst home defeat for Eire, or Repubic of Ireland as they seem to be known now, for more 20 years.

On Tuesday, Kish played 73 minutes of the 0-0 with Wales in Cardiff, while Hermann Hreidarsson performed heroically in both midfield and then defence while captaining Iceland for the full 90 minutes in Reykjavik in their 0-0 against Spain.

Meanwhile, Dennis Rommedahl featured in Denmark's 2-0 win over Poland and apparently after receiving a pass from midfielder Thomas Gravesen "sewed up the match up in the 62nd minute." Of Stephan Andersen I can find no mention.

Thomas Myhre,
seemed to enjoy himself in Oslo starring in a 1-1 draw with Brazil. The sportinglife reports that the "inspired Myhre preserved Norway's lead by stopping a close-range effort from Elano and an extraordinary free-kick by Daniel Carvalho, but the CSKA Moscow playmaker soon had his revenge with the equaliser from Fred's assist. More heroics from Myhre kept out great strikes from Fred and Alex."

Costa Rica didn't appear to have had a game so new star Christian Bolanos was kept busy trying to persuade Immigration to give him his work permit so that he can play football as soon as possible, please.

Talal El Karkouri was in the Moroccan squad for the game against Burkina Faso but the report in the Morocco Times doesn't mention him and there's no team sheet given so he probably sat on the bench dreaming how to stop Marvin Harewood on Saturday.

And what about our new stars from Mali Djimi Traore and Amady Faye of Senegal? Well the dark continent is still proving hard to penetrate and short of asking them or I suppose waiting till CAFC tell us I can't find any news although both Mali and Senegal had games.

And of course, Cory Gibbs and Gonzalo Sorondo both still have their injuries so I suppose stayed at home.

No sign of Jamaica having a game so our duo of Jason Euell and Kevin Lisbie failed to get a game. No change there then.

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