Lafferty, Vokes and Edgar back on international duty

16 October 2013 11:22
Three Burnley players, along with six former Clarets, won full caps last night as more countries confirmed their qualifications for the World Cup Finals next year in Brazil. Fit again, Sam Vokes came on as a sub for Wales

None of the current Burnley players who featured last night will be involved next summer but there were good results for both Northern Ireland and Wales as their qualifying campaigns came to an end.

Northern Ireland have been on the end of some shocking results recently so will take some positives from their 1-1 draw against Israel in Ramat Gan.

Danny Lafferty returned to the side for this game after being named as a sub in the Azerbaijan defeat last Friday. He played the first 78 minutes before being replaced by Shane Ferguson, this six minutes after Steven Davis had scored to earn them the draw.

It was a draw too for Wales, and a more than creditable one too against Belgium in Brussels. Again they had to come from behind with Aaron Ramsey scoring two minutes from time. Sam Vokes returned from injury via the bench; he replaced Simon Church with twenty minutes remaining.

The other Burnley player on international duty was David Edgar. He was in the Canada team that went down to a 3-0 friendly defeat against Australia at Craven Cottage.

Now to those former Clarets and pride of place goes to two of them, Gary Cahill and Gabor Kiraly.

Cahill was in the England side that beat Poland 2-0 at Wembley to ensure a place in Brazil. Goals close to the end of each half from Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard saw us through to the finals as Cahill again partnered Phil Jagielka in the centre of defence.

There is no place in Brazil for Gabor Kiraly and Hungary but the TSV Munich goalkeeper was restored to the team ahead of Adam Bogdan after the 8-1 hammering in Amsterdam,  and he captained them to a 2-0 home win in Budapest against Andorra.

Given the opposition it is perhaps no surprise that he was able to keep a clean sheet but it was a milestone for Gabor who won his 90th cap and kept his 25th clean sheet. Now aged 37 he'll be hoping to make it to three figures and become only the second Hungarian to reach that figure.

József Bozsik , with 101 caps leads the way. He made his international appearances for Hungary between 1947 and 1962 and it included their famous 6-3 win against England at Wembley in 1953.

Sweden led Germany 2-1 in Solna. Three minutes before the break Alex Kačaniklić had given them a 2-0 lead but a goal right on half time from Mesut Ӧzil changed the game with Germany eventually winning the game 5-3 including an Andre Schürrle hat trick. Kačaniklić's goal was his third for his country in 14 appearances.

Diego Penny was also on World Cup duty. He played for Peru in Lima in a 1-1 draw against Bolivia while Martin Paterson, for Northern Ireland, and Rhys Williams, for Australia, played in the games already referred to above.

Cameron Howieson was in the New Zealand squad for their friendly against Trinidad & Tobago in Port of Spain but was an unused substitute. He'll now be hoping to be involved with the squad next month as they face Mexico in Mexico City and then Wellington for a place in Brazil.

Finally, there was no second under-21 appearance for Danny Ings who missed out on England's 5-0 win against Lithuania at Ipswich because of injury, but well done to Luke Conlan who did win his first Northern Ireland under-21 cap, coming on as a late substitute in their 3-1 defeat against Serbia.

Luke has been called up for all of their last four games at this level but this was the first time he'd been named in the match day squad.

The INTERNATIONALS feature has been updated to add all the games played by current and former Burnley players yesterday.

Source: Clarets Mad

Source: FOOTYMAD