Chelsea FC’s International Round-Up
With the final international break of the 2014/15 season now over, let’s take a moment to round-up the involvement of Chelsea FC senior squad players across the world.
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Sunday (7th June) saw Gary Cahill, along with Belgian duo Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois, take part in international friendlies ahead of their respective Euro 2016 qualifiers later in the week. Cahill travelled to Dublin and played around 75 minutes in what was one of the most boring games you will ever see against the Irish. While the previous meeting between these two was abandoned after crowd trouble, Paul Scholes nicely summed this one up:
Paul Scholes on the England vs Ireland friendly: "There was a real lack of quality. A waste of an afternoon." Fair. pic.twitter.com/gMe6LPnycv
— Squawka (@Squawka) June 7, 2015
The English broadcasters of the match, ITV, weren’t too happy either:
FT: Ireland 0-0 England. We're sorry http://t.co/LUqC9uWDCk pic.twitter.com/hOb3ayl4aY
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) June 7, 2015
All I can say is that fortunately I didn’t watch it.
Cahill then waited a week before playing Slovenia away. A more entertaining game, the Blues centre-back featured for the full 90 minutes as Wayne Rooney scored a late winner to give England a 3-2 win to keep their 100% qualifying record intact.
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Hazard, meanwhile, captained Belgium to a sensational 4-3 win in Paris. Scoring a penalty to make it 4-1, the Belgians leaked two more goals before just managing to hang on for the win over their rivals. Courtois played a full part in goal.
They then suffered a somewhat shock defeat, however, falling to Gareth Bale’s Wales 1-0 in Cardiff. More importantly, though, this loss saw Belgium fall 3 points behind the Welsh table-toppers.
Cesc Fabregas netted the winning goal for Spain in a friendly against Costa Rica before travelling to Belarus for a crunch qualifying tie. Fabregas tucked the ball away with a neat finish after a typical Spanish passing move to give
La Roja
a moral boost that helped them defeat Belarus 1-0 a few days later. Spain remain three points behind Slovakia in Group C.
Chelsea’s Serbian duo of Nemanja Matic and Branislav Ivanovic featured in a 3-1 win over Azerbaijan in Austria. Captain Ivanovic netted twice as Serbia were victorious in this friendly.
Their Euro 2016 qualifier, however, did not go to plan as they both played 90 minutes in a 2-0 loss in Denmark. Youngster Andreas Christensen made his debut as a sub in the friendly, before fulfilling the same role in this game. Serbia’s hope of qualification have all but vanished.
Last but not least, Petr Cech was involved in the Czech Republic’s sole fixture as they lost 2-1 against Iceland. Despite taking the lead, Cech could not prevent Iceland from scoring a quick-fire double to overturn the game.
The Copa América, meanwhile, has kicked off with three Blues players taking part. We’ll have more on this as the tournament develops but have a read of our preview to see which stars are in Chile.
That should have you up to date with the senior squad’s whereabouts on this final international break. Most players will now be on holiday before they reconvene for pre-season training in a month or so.
Next: Chelsea FC Ladies: A World Cup Update