Raul Jimenez headed a superb opening goal as Mexico drew 2-2 with South Korea in a friendly overnight. The Fulham forward’s improvised early header was his 42nd goal for his country. You can see the goal in TUDN Mexico’s highlights of an action-packed encounter below:
Jimenez was substituted midway through the second half as a precaution after getting a hefty kick from a South Korean defender and sat on the bench with ice on his leg but walked out of the stadium of his own accord and is expected to be fit for the resumption of Fulham’s Premier League campaign against Leeds United on Saturday afternoon.
Most of us will have watched England put together their most complete performance under Thomas Tuchel, thrashing Serbia 5-0 in Belgrade. Fulham midfielder Sasa Lukic started for the home side and was inevitably cautioned for holding back Harry Kane just before the goal glut began.
As Dan wrote last night, Calvin Bassey’s first international goal guided Nigeria to a World Cup qualifying draw against South Africa in Bloemfontein. Intriguingly, Alex Iwobi started in central midfield for the Super Eagles whilst Fulham’s new signing Samuel Chukwueze came off the bench. Nigeria, though, will struggle to qualify either automatically – or through the play-offs – having failed to beat the Group C leaders.
Sander Berge was part of a Norway side that registered a record Europe World Cup qualifying win over Moldova. The Norwegians won 11-1 to move five points clear of Italy at the top of Group I – and make reaching their first major finals since 1998 a real possibility.
There was a distinctly Fulham flavour to Wales’ meeting with Canada in Swansea. Harry Wilson started for Craig Bellamy’s side – and was booked by our old friend Rob Jones, who had another poor night with the whistle. Luc de Fougerolles lined up in central defence for the Canadians and came close to breaking the deadlock with an outrageous backheel from a corner that came back off the crossbar. Derek Cornelius scored the only goal of the game with a fabulous free-kick shortly afterwards, meaning that Canada had completed three consecutive wins over European opposition for the first time in their history.
Seth Ridgeon played the second half of England’s under 18s 3-2 victory over Canada coming up against his academy team-mate Aidan Evans, whilst Jonah Kusi-Asare was rewarded for his goalscoring turn as a substitute last week with a start for Sweden’s under-21s, who were beaten 2-0 by Montenegro.
In case you missed it, Timothy Castagne featured as Belgium beat Kazakhstan 6-0 and Joachim Andersen kept a clean sheet as Denmark dispatched Greece 3-0 on Monday night.
