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Former Millers At The World Cup

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Rotherham United might not have got any present players at this years World Cup but we have two ex-Millers who have been or who are still in Qatar.

Argentina’s goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez was at Arsenal when he came on an emergency loan to Rotherham in March 2015. He played eight Championship games for the Millers and kept two clean sheets. Since then he had three more loan spells before joining Aston Villa in September 2020 where he fast became their number one.

At the moment he’s helped Argentina to the last sixteen in the 2022 World Cup by keeping three clean sheets out of their four games which saw them top Group C.

Another former Miller is forward Kieffer Moore who is a Welsh International. Now playing in the Premier League with Bournemouth, the thirty year old has scored four goals for them this season. He joined the Millers on loan from Ipswich Town in the summer of 2017 playing in twenty-five games. He scored thirteen goals in a Rotherham shirt in League One, getting a first-half hat-trick in our five-nil home win over Southend. From the New York Stadium he went on to join Barnsley, Wigan and Cardiff before moving to the Cherries in January this year.

Kieffer couldn’t find the net in his three games for Wales in the World Cup with the Welsh team coming bottom of Group B and the players have now returned from Qatar.

The Millers have had other players in the past who have World Cup final experience, the first being < b>Graham Leggett who was with the Scotland team in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. He got two of his eighteen caps during that competition which were against Yugoslavia and Paraguay. He played for Rotherham during the 1968 season where he made sixteen appearances.

Player/Manager Emlyn Hughes was an England international and was included in the 1970 Mexico World Cup Finals although he never actually played. Emlyn came to captain his International side and won fifty-eight caps, his only goal coming in England’s three-nil away win against Wales in the Home Championships in May 1972. He played sixty-three games for the Millers between 1981 and 1983.

Forward Peter Odemwingie went on to play more than sixty games for Nigeria and was involved in two World Cup finals – 2010 in South Africa where he played against Argentina and Greece and the 2014 finals in Brazil where he made four appearances scoring the only goal in their game against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Peter arrived at the New York Stadium in October 2016 making seven Championship appearances one of which saw him get sent off against Leeds United. After the Millers Peter went on to play for Madura United in Indonesia before hanging up his boots in April 2019.

Our only other World Cup ‘star’ is Kari Arnason who had a sixteen year International career with Iceland playing in the 2018 World Cup in Russia where he played twice, his team drawing with Argentina and losing to Nigeria. Kari went on to make ninety appearances for Iceland scoring six goals. The centre-back joined the Millers in June 2012 from Aberdeen going on to make over one hundred appearances and helping Rotherham to back-to-back promotions. He left in 2015 moving to Sweden with Malmo before returning to Aberdeen finishing his career with Vikinger in Iceland.

So will the Millers have a World Cup winner in their former ranks in December? That could very well happen.

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