12 players on the books at Stamford Bridge were in action for their countries.
Several of Chelsea’s players represented their countries on Friday night in World Cup qualifying and fanatix has provided a comprehensive summary of how they got on.
Frank Lampard made his 99th appearance for England and set up the first goal in the 4-0 victory over Moldova at Wembley. It was in the 12th minute that Lampard teed up captain Steven Gerrard to drill home his first Three Lions goal in more than three years from just outside the penalty area.
Ashley Cole and Gary Cahill both started in defence but were relatively untroubled, although Cole’s night ended prematurely after he picked up a booking and was subbed at the break.
There was a full 90 minutes for Kevin De Bruyne in Belgium’s 2-0 win against Scotland, while Thibaut Courtois also kept a clean sheet. Eden Hazard missed the game with an Achilles problem and Romelu Lukaku was an unused substitute.
Michael Essien made his comeback to international football to feature for Ghana for the first time since he was injured in the Africa Cup of Nations in January 2010. Entering the fray from the substitutes bench in the 55th minute, Essien they beat Zambia 2-1 to make it into the African qualifying phase. Recent signing Christian Atsu came on at the same time.
Branislav Ivanovic captained Serbia to a 1-1 draw against Croatia with his World Cup hopes already over as Sinisa Mihajlovic’s side are nine points behind second place. Both sides had a man sent off with former Blues midfielder Nemanja Matic given his marching orders for Serbia.
A shock result in Prague saw Petr Cech conceded in stoppage time to gift Armenia a memorable 2-1 win, although they are still well position to finish in a play-off position.
And lastly Andre Schurrle was forced to with and watch as Germany beat neighbours Austria 3-0 in Munich.
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