All Around The World

It's a week off from the domestic season, which can only mean one thing - international matches! World Cup Qualifiers by the bucketful and, what with our team currently being made up of twenty-one different nationalities, it's to be expected that we'll have a couple on duty. Here's how they got on.

- The big hero of the day is Richard Duffy. Although he's spending this season on loan at Coventry, he's still made enough impact to force his way into the starting XI for Wales - he played the whole 90 minutes of their 1-0 defeat by England today. The more eagle-eyed of you will have noticed ex-blue Carl Robinson coming off the bench in the second half.
- The biggest Pompey turnout of the day came in the Zambia vs Senegal match. Despite reports of riots and lynchings, Collins Mbesuma started the match and even hit the bar. Sadly it was all in vain as his side crashed to a 1-0 defeat. Aliou Cissé was called up for the Senegal squad but failed to play due to injury, and reports also suggest that, despite injury, Diao made the bench as an un-used sub (something I can't really find any link to on the FIFA website). But one man who was definitely on the bench was former striker Dio Kamara.
- Priske came off the bench at half time in Denmark's 2-2 draw with Turkey.
- Vukic came off the bench for Serbia and Montenegro in their 2-0 win over Lithuania. No doubt it was all thanks to his impact after entering the fray in the... er... 89th minute. One of the goals was scored by Sasa Ilic, although disappointingly it was a different one rather than our ex-loanee keeper scoring from a drop kick or something equally hilarious.
- Now on loan in Turkey, Alex Rodic did for his country what he failed to do for us - scored a goal. Sadly it counted for nothing as Slovenia lost 3-2 to Norway, a side who decided not to call up Azar Karadas following his recent poor form.

And for those who didn't play;

- LuaLua captains the DR Congo tomorrow as they tackle Cape Verde Islands
- John Viafara's Colombia take on Uruguay; a win will give him bragging rights over the now-retired Dario Silva
- Andy O'Brien and the Republic of Ireland take on France in midweek
- Chalkias has been dropped from his reliable position as deputy keeper for Greece

Oh, and some guy called Delgado scored a couple of goals for Ecuador against Bolivia. Sounds like a decent talent to me, sign him up...