Darren Fletcher, Louis Saha and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer all scored
on Saturday as their national teams made a fine start to their Euro
2008 qualifying campaign.
Fletcher was first on target for Scotland, bundling the ball home
after just seven minutes in their 6-0 thrashing of the Faroe
Islands. However, Darren's delight was tainted slightly by a yellow
card, which led to Walter Smith withdrawing him at half-time when
the Scots were 5-0 up.
Saha struck in the 16th minute as France, playing in the same group
as Scotland, won 3-0 away to Georgia. Lyon's Florent Malouda opened
the scoring, and Arsenal's Thierry Henry closed it just after the
break. Mikael Silvestre had not been selected for the French
squad.
Solskjaer's remarkable comeback continues - he needed only a
quarter of an hour to find the net for Norway in their 4-1 away win
over Hungary, and he grabbed his second goal only nine minutes into
the second half.
Three other United players helped their countries to win on
Saturday: Wes Brown and Kieran Richardson for England, and Edwin
van der Sar for Holland.
Wes was the only Red to start for England as they beat Andorra 5-0
in front of 56,290 fans at Old Trafford. Kieran came on as sub for
Stewart Downing in the 64th minute, while Michael Carrick remained
on the bench.
Van der Sar kept a clean sheet as Holland went top of Group G by
winning 1-0 in Luxembourg.
Ryan Giggs and John O'Shea were the only Reds to taste defeat on
Saturday, as Wales lost 2-1 in the Czech Republic and the Republic
of Ireland went down 1-0 in Germany. Both matches were in
qualifying Group D.
Meanwhile, Nemanja Vidic's wrist injury was not risked by Serbia
& Montenegro in their 1-0 home win over Azerbaijan.
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