Mags on international duty

Last updated : 13 October 2002 By Martyn Elliott

Kieron Dyer was a second half substitute for England on a ploughed field in Slovakia.

The team struggled to a 2-1 victory with two rather fortunate goals from Beckham and Owen, but Dyer did pretty well in his 15 minutes and earned the praise of Sven-Goran Eriksson. His main role though did seem to involve being on the end of some horrendous challenges from a tiring Slovakian defence, but fortunately Kieron has emerged unscathed.

Aaron Hughes started for Northern Ireland as expected and as also as expected the Ulsterman were on the end of a 3-0 thumping in Spain.

Nikos Dabizas played for Greece in the Ukraine, as they went down 2-0 in their Euro 2004 qualifier. Dalglish misfit Georgiadis was also on the bench.

Portugal were held 1-1 by Tunisia in a friendly in Lisbon. Unable to confirm if Hugo Viana played any part in the game though.

Some of our other old boys didn’t fare too well either. Silvio Maric was an unused sub as Croatia slumped to a surprising 2-0 defeat in Bulgaria.

Jon Dahl Tomasson scored a penalty as Denmark struggled to a 2-0 victory over Luxembourg and Andreas Andersson started in Sweden’s 1-1 draw with Hungary.