FC Barcelona players impress on international stage

The international week is over, so now it’s time to reflect on how the different Barça players performed in international friendlies and Euro 2016 qualifiers this week.

Leo Messi:  Played for Argentina in Beijing and Hong Kong. He played the full 90 minutes of the 2-0 defeat to Brazil, in which he missed a penalty. He was only on for 30 minutes of the 7-0 rout of Hong Kong, but that was enough time to score the 5th and 7th goals and set up the one in between.

Neymar:  Played all of both games Brazil played in Asia. Against Japan he truly excelled, scoring all of the goals in a 4-0 victory.

Luis Suárez: The Uruguayan took full advantage of the dispensation that allows him to play friendlies and played an active role in both matches. He was involved in the only goal against Saudi Arabia and scored two spectacular goals against Oman in the second. He totalled 146 minutes in the Middle East.

Javier Mascherano:  Tata Martino used him in both games, the full 90 against Brazil and the last half hour against Japan.

Gerard Piqué: Vicente del Bosque has every faith in the Barça defender, who played all 90 minutes of the loss to Slovakia and the win against Luxembourg.

Jordi Alba: The Spain manager also made full use of Alba, who was on throughout both of the Euro 2016 qualifiers.

Marc Bartra: Was used for all 90 minutes of the 4-0 win in Luxembourg, playing in the centre of defence alongside club colleague Gerard Piqué.

Sergio Busquets:  Also played all 180 minutes of Spain’s two games and wore the captain’s armband for the last twenty minutes in Luxembourg.

Andrés Iniesta:  Played all 90 minutes of the game with Slovakia and captained the team for 70 minutes against Luxembourg.

Pedro Rodríguez: The Canary Islander played 55 minutes across both Euro 2016 qualifiers.

Sergi Roberto: Played the full two games of the European Championship play-off with Serbia, and his goal gave Spain some hope of making a comeback after going 2-0 down in Cadiz, but they failed to make it into the finals.

Rakitic: Played both Euro 2016 qualifiers for Croatia. He laid up an assist to beat Bulgaria, and another in the 6-0 trouncing of Azerbaijan. In total, he played 170 minutes.

Ter Stegen: The German keeper helped his national U21 side into the finals in the Czech Republic by keeping two clean sheets against Ukraine.

Claudio Bravo: Chile beat Peru in their only game during the international week. Bravo kept a clean sheet and also broke the record for the most caps for his country.

Jérémy Mathieu: Played all 90 minutes of France’s 3-0 friendly win in Armenia.