Diego Costa finally managed to transfer his goalscoring heroics at Chelsea to the international stage in the pick of Blues players in action for their countries this week.
Costa scored his first goal for Spain on the way to the current European champions recording a 3-0 victory over Luxembourg, a game in which Cesc Fàbregas and César Azpilicueta were unused substitutes following the shock defeat to Slovakia on Thursday.
Gary Cahill played a commanding role in helping England keep a clean sheet during their hard fought 1-0 victory away to Estonia on Sunday.
Goalkeeper Petr Čech was in action as his Czech Republic side overcame Kazakhstan 4-2, while André Schürrle missed Germany’s draw with the Republic of Ireland through injury.
Belgium were also battling to qualify for the 2016 European Championships as Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois helped secure a 1-1 draw away to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Serbian internationals Branislav Ivanović and Nemanja Matić saw their politically charged qualifying match against Albania abandoned in controversial fashion after a drone carrying the Albanian flag flew over the pitch, leading to a mass brawl among the players and flares being thrown on to the pitch.
Brazilian trio Felipe Luís, Oscar and Willian have a little further to travel home from as they were all involved in their country’s 4-0 demolition of Japan in a friendly in Singapore.
Loïc Rémy was the second Chelsea player to get on the scoresheet for their country as he inspired France to a 3-0 friendly victory in Armenia.
In under-21 internationals, Mario Pasalic, on loan at Spanish side Elche, was unable to prevent England from beating Croatia to qualify for the European under-21 finals as they lost 4-2 on aggregate.
Similarly, Nathan Ake‘s two goals were not enough to save Holland from losing 7-4 on aggregate against Portugal, but Andreas Christensen‘s Denmark did do enough to qualify, winning their tie with Iceland on away goals.
Feature image courtesy of Brent Flanders, with thanks
