International break: Where are West Ham players going?
After West Ham’s thumping victory over Leicester, some players will now be travelling away to play for their national sides.
Nine players from West Ham have been called up to their national sides, and the majority will be playing in the UEFA Nations League. Fabian Balbuena however, will be playing in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifying campaign, and Arthur Masuaku will be out on friendly duty.
The other seven will become competitors for the next two weeks as they will want the best for the respective side. Angelo Ogbonna, Tomas Soucek, Vladimir Coufal, Andriy Yarmolenko, Lukasz Fabianski, Darren Randolph and Declan Rice have all been called-up.
Ogbonna received his call-up after his brilliant performances for the Hammers recently. It is the first chance Ogbonna will have to represent Italy since March 2018 when he was an unused substitute against England and Argentina. The last cap Ogbonna received was in 2016 when he made a substitute appearance against Isreal.
The 32-year-old defender will play a Nations League match against teammate Fabianski on Sunday as Italy take on Poland in Gdansk. This match will come after friendly games against Moldova for Ogbonna and Finland for Fabianksi. The defender and goalkeeper will finish their international duties against the Netherlands and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Nations League A Group 1.
The two Czech Hammers, Soucek and Coufal, will be in action tonight when they take on Cyprus in their first international fixture. The duo will then fly to Haifa to face Isreal in the UEFA Nations League B Group 2 on Sunday. Soucek and Coufal’s third and final fixture is closer to home as they take on Scotland in Glasgow on Wednesday 14th October.
Yarmolenko probably will have the hardest set of matches out of all the Hammers. Ukraine an away friendly fixture against France in Paris. This friendly is then followed by Nations League A Group 4 ties against German and Spain in Kyiv.
The Republic of Ireland and Randolph also have three matches to play. They start with a UEFA Euro 2020 Play-off match away to Slovakia on Thursday 8th October. Ireland then turns their attentions to the Nations League B Group 4, where they will play Wales and Finland.
The only South American international, Balbuena, will travel the 6,338 miles back to Paraguay to begin their World Cup qualifiers. Balbuena will face off against Peru and Venezuela before reuniting with West Ham. Finally, Masuaku will travel to Rabat to play in a friendly against Morocco for DR Congo.
Declan Rice won’t have much travelling to do as England have three home games in the next two weeks. First up is a friendly against Wales, which will then be followed by Nations League A Group 2 matches Belgium and Denmark.
There have also been call ups for some of West Ham’s academy players for their national sides youth teams. Harrison Ashby (Scotland U21), Conor Coventry (Republic of Ireland U21) and Ajibola Alese (England U20) have all been selected.
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David Moyes will have a small number to work with over the coming fortnight as there will only be twelve senior players at the club. This is usually the time that West Ham fans dread receiving news that one of the clubs stars have picked up an injury and will miss club matches. Hopefully, that is not the case.