March’s International Round Up: Europe
Four Brighton and Hove Albion players were in action during the March International Break as qualifying for Euro 2020 got underway
Shane Duffy and the Republic of Ireland made the perfect start to their campaign, winning six points out of six in Mick McCarthy’s first games back in charge.
The first of those came away in Gilbraltar on Saturday and it wasn’t exactly convincing as the Boys in Green could only squeak past the part-timers 1-0. Burnley’s Jeff Hendrick got the only goal early in the second half to secure a first win in seven competitive outings for Ireland.
The hosts nearly took a shock lead on the stroke of half time when customs officer Roy Chipolina’s header was only kept out by a brilliant save from Darren Randolph. That proved to be a wake up call for the Irish and four minutes after the restart, Hendrick swept home a pinpoint cross from David McGoldrick who’d gone bustling down the left.
Duffy meanwhile could have got on the score sheet but he placed a free header off target. Given that he has scored five times in the Premier League from similar situations, it was something of a surprise to see Duffy squander the opportunity.
Ireland’s second game was won by the same score line but with a much improved performance against Georgia at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night. Aston Villa’s Conor Hourihane scored a superb first half free kick after a delay in proceedings because of a protest against John Delaney’s continuing employment with the FAI.
Irish fans threw tennis balls onto the pitch in response to the fact that Delaney had been appointed to a newly created role as executive vice-president, just a few hours after he’d finally stepped down as chief executive following a scandal which is being investigated by the Irish Government in which Delaney lent money to the FAI. And you thought our FA was shambles.
The six points capped off a good week for Duffy. He had been named as Ireland’s Player of the Year for the second consecutive year before flying out to Dublin for international duty, although he had missed the awards ceremony due to the Albion’s FA Cup tie with Millwall going all the way to penalties.
Davy Propper meanwhile was introduced from the bench at half time in the Netherland’s 4-0 win over Belarus. Ronald Koeman’s side were already 2-0 up by that point through Memphis Depay and Georgino Wijnaldum and added further goals in the second half via Depay again and Virgil van Dijk.
Propper then missed Oranje’s 3-2 defeat to Germany through injury although he isn’t expected to be ruled out of this Saturday’s Albion game with Southampton. That’s not a mistake, we really do have a fixture before the FA Cup Semi Final in case you’d forgotten.
One man unlikely to feature against the Saints is Florin Andone. The striker missed both of Romania’s qualifiers against Sweden and the Faroe Islands with the injury sustained in the warm up before Brighton’s 2-1 win at Crystal Palace nearly three weeks ago.
Teenage midfielder Tudor Baluta did feature in both of Romania’s games though, playing 78 minutes before being replaced with Andrei Ivan in the 2-1 defeat against the Swedes. He was then an unused sub in the 4-1 win over the Faroes. Baluta will link up with the Albion in the summer in a £2.5m transfer from Romanian side Viitorul Constanța.
There was an injury scare for Beram Kayal who had to be helped from the field during Israel’s 1-1 draw with Slovenia in Haifa. Eran Zahavi had equalised for hosts seven minutes after Andraz Sporar gave Slovenia a lead early in the second half.
Kayal was suitably recovered to start in his sides 4-2 win over Austria on Sunday. West Ham United striker Marko Arnautovic scored twice for Austria but a hat-trick from Zahavi gave Israel their first win of the campaign with Kayal winning plaudits for his performance in the midfield engine room.
