Ward suffers heartbreak in Euros play-off final shootout
DANNY Ward and Wales suffered penalty shoot-out heartbreak to miss out on a place at Euro 2024, writes
The Leicester City goalkeeper was unable to keep out any of Poland’s five spot-kicks following the goalless draw in Cardiff, with Wojciech Szczesny saving Dan James’ effort to deny Wales a place in Germany this summer.
Ward was untested across the 120 minutes, with Poland failing to register a shot on target, but Wales, despite scoring four against Finland in the play-off semi-finals, couldn’t convert at the other end.
Poland join Ukraine and Georgia in completing the 24-team line-up at the tournament.
The only other City player in senior competitive action was Harry Souttar, the big defender helping Australia to progress to the next stage of World Cup qualification in a 5-0 thrashing of Lebanon.
There were eight more City players in senior international friendly action though. Patson Daka was the pick of the bunch, getting on the scoresheet as Zambia beat Malawi 2-1.
There was another clean sheet for Jannik Vestergaard as he played 90 minutes in Denmark’s friendly win over Faroe Islands. Mads Hermansen was an unused substitute.
Wout Faes played the final few minutes for Belgium at Wembley, and was on the pitch when Jude Bellingham scored England’s lastgasp equaliser in a 2-2 draw.
Former City midfielder Youri Tielemans scored both of Belgium’s goals.
Yunus Akgun was brought on for Turkey as they were routed by Austria 6-1, while Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho also suffered defeat with Nigeria, who went down 2-0 to Mali. Abdul Fatawu’s Ghana were twice pegged back in a 2-2 draw with Uganda.
There was a debutant, too, with Tawanda Maswanhise becoming the 150th City player to make a senior international appearance.
The forward came on for Zimbabwe in their 3-1 loss to Kenya. His dad was a sprinter for Zimbabwe at the Commonwealth Games 20 years ago.
Callum Doyle came on as England Under-21s beat Luxembourg 7-0, while Ben Nelson played the whole of England Under-20s’ 3-1 victory over the Czech Republic.