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International break roundup, part 1: Ricketts in action, Mixu gets big result, Bogdan benched

Denis Doyle

The international break is in full swing and there are a few Bolton Wanderers men in action. Thursday saw Craig Dawson and Marvin Sordell get quality minutes in a comfortable win against Romania. Another current Trotter was in action on Friday, another was on the bench, and a favorite from the past managed his team to a massive result.

Sam Ricketts - Scotland 1-2 Wales

Scotland went ahead on the stroke of halftime through Blackburn man Grant Hanley from a set piece. Sam Ricketts had, to be frank, an absolute nightmare on the play. Hanley lost his mark in Ricketts and when the Bolton defender, who was playing centrally in this one, found him again, Hanley toward over him and comfortably headed home.

Luckily for Wales, the goal was the only one Scotland would score on the night. Wales would equalize through an Aaron Ramsey penalty following Robert Snodgrass's foul and sending off in the box. Hal Robson-Kanu would win the match for Wales some 90 seconds later after heading home their second goal.

Wales are now third in their group, seven points behind Belgium and Croatia at the top.

Adam Bogdan - Hungary 2-2 Romania

Adam Bogdan, who has missed the last three games for Bolton Wanderers with a groin issue, was kept out of Hungary's 2-2 draw. Gabor Kiraly played the entire match in net. Hungary remain second-place in their group, level on 10 points with Romania but maintaining the better goal difference. They are four points clear of fourth-place Turkey.

Mixu Paatelainen - Spain 1-1 Finland

Former Bolton Wanderer (1994-1997) Mixu Paatelainen is currently managing the Finnish national team. His team is bottom of their qualifying group and thus badly in need of points. No one expected them to get anything from an away trip to the current, well, everything holders, Spain. Mixu's team were fine sitting back and letting Spain maintain possession everywhere but the final third and it took until the 49th minute for them to open the scoring through Sergio Ramos.

When the match was all said and done, Spain had an enormous 82% share of the possession to Finland's 18%. That said, Finland saw out the 90 minutes and did very well with Teemu Pukki equalizing on 79 minutes to earn Finland an extremely important point.