Potential injury worries at the back
Roberto De Zerbi may potentially have to call upon an entirely new centre back pairing after both Jan Paul van Hecke and Micky van de Ven sustained minor injuries playing for the Netherlands during their unbeaten UNL League A run.
Van Hecke was superb against both Germany (D 1-1) and Serbia (W 2-1), rating 7.7 and 8.0 out of 10 in each game respectively after winning an outstanding 14 of 19 individual duels across both matches and completing 176 passes at an accuracy rate of 93%. He made 13 progressive passes against Germany and 20 progressive carries against Serbia, whilst accumulating 13 clearances, 13 ball recoveries and blocking three German shots.
He returned to the Tottenham camp early after collecting a minor foot injury at training and is in a race against time to be passed fit for Saturday’s trip to Manchester.
Van de Ven played almost every minute of the Netherlands’ four matches, being subbed out of the weekend 2-1 win at home to Serbia with a finger issue after Luka Jovic landed awkwardly on his left arm. He underwent a scan early this week, with the results unknown at time of writing.
The 25-year-old recorded Flashscore ratings between 6.5 and 7.0 across all four games - good, but not great - having played all four matches at left back. He won 65% of all individual duels, passed with 95% accuracy and won six of nine attempted tackles in total across the Netherlands’ four games, during which they picked up eight points to share the top of Group A2 with Greece.
Tel-ific fortnight for goalless Tottenham forwards
Mathys Tel is yet to hit the back of the net for his club this season, but he certainly found the qualification rounds for the 2027 European Under-21 Championship far too easy during the international window.
Tel amassed five goals in a shade over five hours of play for the France U21 side as they topped Group C with an unbeaten record of 26 points from ten matches.
Tel delivered nearly half of their 13 goals during the four matches played in the window, including a sparkling hat-trick in a 7-1 thrashing of Switzerland, to finish the qualifying cycle as the joint-second highest scorer with eight goals, behind Club Brugge’s German striker Nicolo Tresoldi (ten).
He’s one of many players that De Zerbi has backed to fire throughout the middle of the season as the forwards continue to acclimatise to his system.
Manchester City recruit Omar Marmoush is another striker yet to deliver a single goal for De Zerbi, but he potentially played himself into form with a double in Egypt’s 5-0 AFCON qualifying win away to South Sudan in Juba.
Whilst the goalkeeping he was up against was not to Premier League standard, Marmoush showed excellent composure during both strikes.
Other appearances included:
Wales captain Ben Davies played out all but seven minutes of their four UNL League A games, rating between 5.9 (L 2-0 v Denmark) and 6.8 (W 2-1 v Norway) across his four stints. There was little to note about what was a very busy international window for the 33-year-old.
Left-back Andrew Robertson was pushed up into left midfield for Scotland and completed the full 90 minutes in three of their four League B matches, during which they collected four points to be third in Group B1. Robertson’s best performance was during the 0-0 draw in Slovenia, where he was Scotland’s second-highest rated player (7.6 out of 10) for landing a game-high three key passes and winning seven of his ten individual duels.
37-year-old Martin Dubravka made his 61st appearance for Slovakia when playing in a 2-1 home win over Kazakhstan, standing in for incumbent goalkeeper Dominik Greif who played the other three games. Dubravka faced only two shots and saved one of them, rating 6.6 in a quiet evening.
On a similar note, Antonin Kinsky also stood between the upright in only one of Czech Republic’s four UNL games as one of three keepers used during their four consecutive League A defeats. On his first team debut, Kinsky was the team’s highest rating player (7.7 out of 10) during their 3-1 loss to Spain in Oviedo after he saved seven of Spain’s ten shots on target, preventing a complete rout.
Kevin Danso, who is still owned by Spurs whilst on loan at Sunderland, was booked twice in Austrian colours during three League B performances but recorded very respectable ratings of 7.1 to 7.3 out of 10 across his three matches as starting centre back.
Danso accumulated 16 clearances, five interceptions, ten ball recoveries and four tackles won throughout his four-and-a-half hours of football, whilst passing with 91% accuracy.
Midfielder Sandro Tonali played just shy of four-and-a-half hours of a total six as Italy had a mixed UNL window, picking up seven out of nine points following their 2-0 home loss to Belgium. Tonali rated between 6.1 and 6.8 out of 10 in his four appearances and remained without a competitive goal or assist for both club and country in 2026/27.
Tonali’s Italian teammate, Guglielmo Vicario, sat on the bench for all four matches.
Sweden’s Lucas Bergvall started in three of their four UNL matches and won all three as they defeated Radu Dragusin’s Romania twice (2-1 and 1-0) as well as Poland (3-1) to be clear at the top of Group B4 by two points. He saved his best performance for last, rating 7.2 out of 10 in Bucharest courtesy of blocking three Romanian shots and making four accurate passes in the final third.
Dragusin missed the second game against Sweden through suspension after he was sent off just 22 minutes into Romania’s 6-0 loss to Poland for bringing Robert Lewandowski down in the box.
Pape Matar Sarr started in two of Senegal’s three AFCON qualifiers, rating 6.5 out of 10 in Senegal’s 1-1 draw away to Mozambique before playing another 63 minutes in a 1-0 friendly win over
Rodrigo Bentancur accumulated plenty of miles in the air but little to celebrate on the ground as Uruguay completed a whirlwind tour of Asia with matches against Japan (L 3-1), South Korea (W 4-1) and India (W 6-1). Bentancur registered Flashscore ratings of between 6.5 and 6.7 in the three games after starting in central midfield on each occasion, topping the stats counts for ball recoveries against India (six), accurate layoffs against South Korea (four) and accurate long passes (eight) against Japan.
22-year-old midfielder Mateus Fernandes got his second assist of the 2027 U21 European Championship qualifying tournament for Portugal as they comfortably defeated Gibraltar 4-0 at home to win Group B with eight wins from ten matches. He then sat out their third and final match of the window - a win over Czech Republic - to return to London with a comfortable 180 minutes of game time recorded.
England also won their U21 Euro qualifying group and Archie Gray started in left midfield in all three of their matches.
Aaron Murphy has been with Flashscore since 2018 and, as the founding editor of the Australian newsdesk, has reported on-site at several major events in Melbourne including the Australian Open, State of Origin, A-League, NBL and international cricket. You can read his pieces here and contact him on X or LinkedIn.
