Focus back on championship for Birmingham City

Nov 20 2008 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

ALEX McLeish kept a beady on last night’s round of international friendlies – and for good reason.

Blues had four players in action, just two days hours before the Championship match at Swansea City.

He probably wouldn’t have been too happy that James McFadden, starting alongside Wolves’s Chris Iwelumo, got 67 minutes as Scotland lost 1-0 at Hampden Park to Argentina in Diego Maradona’s first game in charge.

Sebastian Larsson came on at half-time for Christian Wilhelmsson and played on the wing in Sweden’s 3-1 defeat by Holland in Amsterdam.

Maik Taylor captained Northern Ireland, and although they lost 2-0 to Hungary at Windsor Park, he was replaced at the interval by Jonathan Tuffey.

Quincy came close to scoring the only goal of the game as a late substitute for Ghana in their 0-0 draw against Tunisia.

Radhi Jaidi was excused duty for Tunisia in Accra and stayed at home.

Swansea were also sweating on several members of their squad coming through the midweek internationals unscathed.

Jason Scotland has been away with Trinidad & Tobago for a World Cup qualifier against Cuba.

Closer to home, Ashley Williams started for Wales in their friendly in Denmark. Owain Tudur-Jones was sent on at the end of an excellent 1-0 win, while Shaun MacDonald travelled but was not used.