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Seb Larsson won his 39th cap as a Sunderland player last night as he started against France, breaking Charlie Hurley's club record which had stood since the 1960s in the process. Speaking about potentially breaking the record last week, Larsson said it would be a nice thing to happen and would show how long he had now been at the club;
I've been told about the record, it's not really a target as such, but if it happens, it will be a nice thing.
Any kind of record you can be involved in is important, and I suppose it'll say something about how long I've been playing with Sunderland.
Hopefully, that'll be the way people look at it. I've just signed a new deal in the summer, so I'm going to be here for a while. I'm enjoying things.
The 29-year-old ended up on the losing side on his record breaking appearance though, with France dominating the encounter at the Stade Velodrome. The home side took the lead in the 83rd minute when Raphael Varane headed home an Antoine Griezmann corner and should have doubled the lead a few minutes later after France were awarded a penalty when Oscar Wendt handled the ball but Karim Benzema fired his spot kick over the bar.
There was better news for Costel Pantilimon, who started his first international for Romania since a World Cup warm-up game against Algeria in June and marked his return to the side with a clean sheet as the home side beat Denmark 2-0.
Pantilimon had little to do against Nicklas Bendtner's side as the visitors struggled to test the Sunderland goalkeeper. The home side eventually won the game thanks to two goals from Claudiu Keseru, the second of which was an absolute beauty from 25 yards out.
The potential match-up between John O'Shea and Jozy Altidore failed to materialise as O'Shea was an unused substitute in Ireland's home game with the USA. Although he didn't make an appearance, O'Shea was awarded his 100th cap before the game by Republic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill to a standing ovation from the Aviva Stadium fans.
Altidore captained the visitors and played the entire 90 minutes but was unable to inspire his side as Ireland ran out 4-1 winners. The striker was involved in the USA equaliser, as his cross was headed down by Chris Wondolowski for Mix Diskerud to stab home and the 25-yard-old was also unlucky to see a shot cannon back off the bar just before half-time but Ireland were well worth their comfortably victory and won the game thanks to goals by Anthony Pilkington, two for Robbie Brady and former Sunderland winger James McClean.
Mavrias got a rare start but was unable to influence the game as Greece lost 2-0 at home to Serbia. The visitors livened up an extremely dull game with goals by Radoslav Petrovic and Nemanja Gudelj. Caretaker managers were in charge of both teams after Claudio Ranieri and Dick Advocaat left their posts after poor results at the weekend and the lack of confidence from both sides showed in a poor quality game.
Finally, Santiago Vergini was an unused substitute for Argentina's game with Portugal at Old Trafford. The game that saw Lionel Messi pitted against Cristiano Ronaldo was settled by a late Raphael Guerreiro goal.
