Northern Ireland v Romania

DID YOU KNOW? STUART DALLAS SPECIAL

Words Marshall Gillespie

Leeds United defender/midfielder Stuart Dallas earned his 50th cap for Northern Ireland in the Path B Play-Off Final defeat against Slovakia last week. Here Marshall Gillespie delves deep into his international career to unearth some fascinating facts about the man affectionately known by the GAWA as the Cookstown Cafu. All statistics were correct prior to the Nations League game v Austria on Sunday when Stuart both captained his country for the first time and earned his 51st cap

Stuart Dallas made his Northern Ireland debut on 27 May 2011 in a 2-0 Carling Nations Cup defeat to Wales at Aviva Stadium in Dublin while still plying his trade in the Irish League with Crusaders. That was to be his only cap when with the North Belfast side, while the majority of his 50 appearances have been during his time with Leeds United (45) and the remaining games with his first English club, Brentford (four).

During his nine-year international career Stuart Dallas has only ever picked up five yellow cards. His first was on that memorable day in Lyon when Northern Ireland defeated Ukraine 2-0 at Euro 2016. His other cautions came against Wales (June 2016), Norway (March 2017), Belarus (June 2019) and Netherlands (November 2019).

Stuart played four games for Northern Ireland at under-17 level during the 2007-08 season. And in the squad at that time were his current international team-mates Conor McLaughlin and Shane Ferguson. Dallas also played two games for the Northern Ireland under-21 side, his debut being against Denmark in September 2011 with his only other appearance being a friendly defeat to Hungary in August 2012. He has also represented his country at Junior and under-23 levels.

Stuart has chalked up six assists during his half- century of caps. Two of them have led to goals from skipper Steven Davis, while he has also assisted goals for Josh Magennis, Kyle Lafferty, Conor Washington and Niall McGinn.

Dallas has scored three international goals for his country. He first found the net in the 1-1 friendly encounter with Qatar at Gresty Road, Crewe, in May 2015 in what was only his fourth full international appearance. He had to wait just over two years, June 2017, before registering his second when he scored the only goal of the game in injury time in a World Cup qualifier in Baku versus Azerbaijan. His third and last goal was in a convincing 3-0 victory over Israel at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park in September 2018.

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