How Brighton players fared in their final Euro 2020 warm ups
The preparations are done and Brighton & Hove Albion’ five participants at Euro 2020 (in 2021) are now ready to go following the completion of the final set of warm up matches in the lead up to the tournament.
Where else can we stand our round up other than with Ben White? Having been a surprise inclusion in Gareth Southgate’s England squad, White has impressed so much in his first two tastes of international football that he has forced his way into the Three Lions squad for the final as a replacement for the injured Trent Alexander-Arnold.
White made his full international debut against Romania at the Riverside Stadium on Sunday, helping England record another clean sheet in a 1-0 win secured via captain Marcus Rashford’s penalty.
That extended the record of Albion players on England duty to eight wins from eight games and no goals conceded. If Southgate is serious about winning the tournament, then perhaps he should have put Jason Steele, Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster, Dan Burn, Solly March, Tariq Lamptey, Adam Lallana and Danny Welbeck on the plane as well.
There is now a real chance that White could kick off the tournament in England’s starting XI having surely moved ahead Tyrone Mings in the pecking order.
Whilst nobody appeared to have told Mings England were playing in blue and Romania in white and he subsequently spent most of the time 90 minutes being the visitors’ biggest threat, White was one of four players nominated for Man-of-the-Match in a composed display that was more like that of an international veteran of 52 caps, not a rookie earning only his second.
Of the other three Brighton players going to Euro 2020, Jakub Moder seems the most likely to start. Moder played the full 90 minutes of Poland’s 2-2 draw with Iceland in Poznan.
The hosts had to come from behind twice, Piotr Zielinski and Karol Swiderski cancelling out goals from Iceland’s Albert Gudmundsson and Brynjar Bjarnason.
Moder will have felt right at home in a performance that was very Brighton-esque. Poland recorded 75 percent possession in a dominant display yet they still contrived not to win – even with the world’s best centre forward Robert Lewandowski leading the line.
Belgium will go into the tournament in good form having beaten Croatia – who White and England face at Wembley on Sunday – 1-0 in Brussels. Leandro Trossard was an unused sub for the Red Devils whose goal came from Romelu Lukaku.
Like Trossard, Joel Veltman failed to climb off the bench as the Netherlands had a routine 3-0 win over Georgia. Memphis Depay will be walking into Euro 2020 (in 2021) in good form as he made it three goals from two warm up matches when slotting home a 10th minute penalty.
The wonderfully named Wout Weghorst doubled the advantage early in the second half with teenager Ryan Gravenberch rounding off the scoring in Amsterdam.
Robert Sanchez was denied the opportunity to make his Spain debut as a positive Covid-19 test in the camp meant that they had to field an Under 21s side in their 4-0 win over Lithuania.
Captain Sergio Busquets and 1996 Coca Cola Cup runners up The Leeds United defender Diego Llorente have both contracted the virus, leaving them to self isolate. The rest of the squad are now training individually in their bubble.
Sanchez had seemed certain to play some part in the Lithuania game with rumours in Spain last week that Luis Enrique was considering making the Brighton goalkeeper his first choice for Euro 2020 (in 2021).
It now seems unlikely that Sanchez will feature at the tournament, unless Enrique decides to take the risk of playing a goalkeeper with no experience of international football in a competition which Spain could well in, depending on how badly all this disruption impacts them.
Away from the Euro 2020 (in 2021) warm up action, the Republic of Ireland recorded a decent 0-0 draw in their friendly away in Hungary. Shane Duffy had an excellent evening, ending what has been a testing 2020-21 season for him on loan at Celtic on a high.
He was the Republic’s man-of-the-match with one superb second half block from Loic Nego harking back to the Duffy of old who would block and head everything on the pitch and then drink anything going in Molly Malone’s off it.
Jayson Molumby also received some game time, replacing Conor Hourihane early in the second half. Like Duffy, Molumby has endured a frustrating campaign. He struggled to break in at Brighton in the first half of the season and then making little impression on loan at Preston North End after moving to Deepdale in January.
Over in Asia and and neither Alireza Jahanbakhsh nor Maty Ryan featured in their nation’s World Cup qualifiers. Iran beat Bahrain 3-0 with Jahanbakhsh sat on the bench whilst Ryan was rested completely as Australia beat the might of Chinese Taipei 5-1.
