SAFC international round-up

Seb Larsson’s Sweden suffered defeat in their Euro 2012 opener on Monday at the hands of co-hosts, Ukraine.

Larsson, who started the match, playing 69 minutes, was making his comeback from injury following a hernia operation at the back end of the season.

The Black Cat’s winger was powerless to prevent his side from defeat as they went down to two goals from former Chelsea and AC Milan forward, Andriy Shevchenko.

Elsewhere, South Korean forward Ji Don-Won was a substitute for South Korea who defeated Lebanon 3-0 on Tuesday.

The young forward provided the cross for Koo Ja-Cheol to convert Korea’s third goal.

Ji was also a used substitute in Korea’s 4-1 win over Qatar four days earlier.

Back-to-back wins leave Ji and co. in pole position to qualify for World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

In African Nations Cup Qualifying, Stephane Sessegnon helped his country to a 1-1 draw in Rwanda on Sunday evening.

Benin took the lead through Razak Omotoyossi before Bokota Labama levelled for the hosts.

Finally, Ireland winger James McClean will be pushing his claim to start for Giovanni Trapattoni’s side after the Republic were comfortably beaten by Croatia in the first round.

Ireland look void of ideas for long periods of time and the demand to see McClean thrown in from the start is growing – particularly amongst the SAFC following!