September 2024 international round-up
The Premier League resumes this weekend, but here’s how 10 of our Men’s Fist Team fared on international duty over the last week.
Jan Bednarek was on pitch the most, playing every minute of Poland’s two Nations League openers. The defender was part of a dramatic last gasp win over Scotland last Thursday, before suffering a narrow 1-0 defeat to Croatia on Sunday.
Also in Nations League action was Will Smallbone, who played the first 75 minutes of the Republic of Ireland’s 2-0 defeat at home to England last weekend. Suffering the same score line on Tuesday at the hands of Greece, the midfielder played the full 90 minutes and was handed the Player of the Match award on an otherwise difficult night.
It was an equally frustrating pair of results for Ben Brereton Díaz who was in World Cup qualifying action for Chile. Off the bench for the final 10 minutes against World Champions Argentina the striker couldn’t stop a 3-0 defeat, before being withdrawn after just 34 minutes in the defeat to Bolivia on Tuesday night.
Youngsters Sam Amo-Ameyaw and Tyler Dibling saw plenty of game time as England Under-19s had three friendlies in the space of six days.
Starting with a 2-2 draw with Italy, the pair featured for 30 minutes and 15 minutes respectively, before starting in the 1-1 tie with Croatia. Narrowly losing 3-2 to Germany in their final outing, Amo-Ameyaw impressed from the start while Dibling netted an impressive solo effort late on after being introduced in the second half.
Staying within the England youth setup, Taylor Harwood-Bellis captained the Under-21s to a 4-1 EURO U21 qualifying win over Austria, with Saints teammate Nathan Wood subbed on inside the final 10 minutes.
In the same qualifying campaign, Mateus Fernandes was named in Portugal’s starting eleven in their 2-0 win over Croatia, with the midfielder lasting 70 minutes.
Yukinari Sugawara and Lesley Ugochukwu return to Staplewood having not featured for Japan and France Under-21s.
