Eduardo da Silva was the hero for Croatia – as they went perilously close to a shock defeat vs Liechtenstein.
When Arsenal snapped up Eduardo da Silva from Dynamo Moscow it looked every bit as if they had plucked a diamond from the rough.
In his early performances for The Gunners he looked to be every bit as impressive as his reported £7.5 million price-tag suggested.
But we all know what happened next.
Playing against Birmingham City, Eduardo was the recipient of a horror tackle from Martin Taylor, and one of the worst on-screen injuries ever witnessed in the Premier League occurred.
His leg break and ankle dislocation kept him out of the game for almost exactly a year – and he returned a shadow of the impressive striker they had originally signed.
In the end it didn’t work out, and he was flogged to Shakhtar Donetsk for £6 million in 2010.
And that is where the Croat remains today, where he has had a rather positive start to the season with The Miners after a difficult 2012-13.
But of course he is also a star of his naturalized national team – Croatia.
As we England fans know, Eduardo can be devastating in the red-and-white of Hrvatska – and last night he was vital to avoiding blushes across the land.
After their shock defeat to Scotland the Croat faithful would have been looking forward to a chance to score some goals and have a comfortable victory – step up European minnows Liechtenstein.
However, the team ranked 148th in the world obviously didn’t read the script.
They pushed Croatia all the way in a 3-2 defeat, which without Eduardo’s influence could have been a shocking victory.
However two goals from the naturalized-Brazilian, and an assist from the same player for one-time falsely reported Tottenham target Ante Rebic was enough to win the game 3-2 – despite the best efforts of their minnow rivals.
Here are the goals from the game…
image: © wonker
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