I’ve spent the autumn decrying Welsh performances and I’m not going to change my tune on that after what we’ve seen tonight, but this was a result which will send shock waves through European football.
Before anyone says I’m going over the top there, after all we’re more than thirty places above North Macedonia in the world rankings, I’d say that our opponents are in a false position in the rankings because they were unbeaten in their seven group games up to now, they’d conceded three goals in that time and none at all in their three away games.
Tonight Wales scored as many goals as North Macedonia had conceded in those seven matches and in the second half we scored one more than that!
I still think Craig Bellamy made mistakes during the three international get togethers so far this season with, perhaps the biggest one being that Ethan Ampadu p;icked up a late booking on Saturday which ruled him out tonight when. there was absolutely no need for him to be on the pitch at that late stage of the game.
Indeed, there are those who say that none of the four Welsh players one booking away from a suspension against North Macedonia should not have been in the starting line up against Lietchtenstein figuring that we could have fielded a team without them whuch would have been good enough to win. I wouldn’t go that far, but the fact we were without Ampadu tonight just seemed so unnecessary.
However, Craig Bellamy quelled the criticisim tonight – it’s hard to imagine how he could have had a better game than he did as he got his selection right, won the tactical battle hands down and won by playing fast, exciting, attacking football.
Apparently, Wales’ biggest ever win was against Ireland in 1888 I think it was, but I can’t remember us scoring more than six in a game in the time I’ve been watching them play.*.
As mentioned above, tonight Craig Bellamy got his selection right. An unchanged back four in front of Karl Darlow had Josh Sheehan and Liam Cullen in front of them. I don’t think Sheehan has ever let Wales down and he didn’t tonight as, with Cullen pushing forward a lot, he was a single pivot where most were expecting two of them. Cullen, much maligned in some quarters, was intelligent and sharp In his movement and passing.
However, it was the four forward players who really put the North Macedonians to the sword. The Premier League quartet of Dan James, David Brooks, Brennan Johnson and captain Harry Wilson led the visitor’s defence a merry dance with their movement and interchanging of position. Bellamy said that Wilson played as a false number nine and it seemed to me that North Macedonia’S big defenders struggled in not having a specific opponent to mark. True, Johnson stuck primarily to the left and James the right, but they moved infield to good effect – especially when they both scored memorable goals.
Brooks and Wilson were simply too sharp and skillful for whoever was marking them – Wilson will get the headlines for his hat trick and he was superb, but so were five or six others in red.
The often frustrating Johnson took about a minute to show that tonight might be different as he broke clear of the defence, cut inside and his pass reached Brooks who volleyed a yard or so over. For a while, it looked like this would be an isolated example of effective Welsh attacking as North Macedonia looked to settle to their task, but that was all changed on eighteen minutes when Brooks was tripped in the penalty area as he moved on to a cute James pass.
Keeper Dimitrievski got a hand to Wilson’s spot kick but it was so well placed into the corner that it wasn’t strong enough to keep the ball out of the net. Three minutes later, Wales were in dreamland as Jay DeSilva sent Johnson clear with an astute pass and he pulled back a cross to around the penalty spot where Brooks hooked in a shot which went beyond the keeper with the help of a deflection.
Welsh euphoria disappeared within two minutes as Joe Rodon allowed Bojan Miovski to get beyond him and, with Darlow slipping as he came out, he was able to find the net easily.
A clever angled free kick by North Macedonia captain Bardhi had Darlow scrambling to turn it aside, but most of the action was up the other end, notably when Wilson linked up with Neco Williams and the full back’s shot brought a fine save out of Dimitrievski as he turned the ball onto the post.
The keeper had no chance a few minutes later though as Johnson again came infield and produced his best moment yet in a Wales shirt as his shot from twenty yards flew into the top corner. Once again, there was a deflection on the shot, but this one was so slight it made little difference to the trajectory of the ball.
What was supposed to be a tight, tense evening had produced a first half awash with goals and goalmouth action, but there was nothing to make Wales think the job was already done at 3-1.
Except, that’s not really true because North Macedonia came out and played as if they were a beaten side in the second half – don’t get me wrong, Wales were excellent, but the visitors were awful after the break.
Once Wales had scored a delightful fourth as they moved the ball forward to Brooks down the right who then found Wilson whose lovely back heel set up James for a simple finish, North Macedonia caved in.
With a quarter of an hour to go, Wilson won a free kick twenty yards out and there was almost a sense of inevitability about what happened next as he curled the ball in at the near post. Six minutes later, it was six when Wilson was fouled for a clear penalty which he converted to complete his hat trick.
Ronan Kpakio was one of the subs introduced for the closing stages and, with Dylan Lawlor on from the start, there was a third City representative as Isaak Davies got a first senior cap when he came on with just five minutes to go. However, that was enough time to get an assist as he flicked on a corner taken by another sub Sorba Thomas. Davies’ header was probably going in, but another sub, Nathan Broadhead applied the finishing touch from about two yards out to complete the scoring.
So, after what I reckon was one of the great nights in Welsh football (okay North Macedonia aren’t world beaters, but they’re also not mugs and are not in the habit of losing by any score, let alone 7-1), Wales now have a home Semi Final in the Play Offs and it’s being said on the match broadcast that we’ll be playing one of the Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, Kosovo or Albania (subsequently, there was a change to that with Bosnia replacing Slovakia as possible opponents, but the matter will be cleared up whrn UEFA officially announce thise participating in the Play Offs today). Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t want to face the Irish, but wouldnt mind any of the others.
The under 19s led their mini league going into their final game today, but, despite a better second half showing, were always second best to Germany who ran out 3-0 winners. Jac Thomas started the game, while Mannie Barton and Noah Williams came on as subs. With USA beating Japan 1-0 in their last game, they won the tournament and Germany climbed above us on goal difference.
The under 17s went ten goals better than the senior team by beating Lietchtenstein 11-0 with City’s Paul Moreno scoring a hat trick, but a defeat against Slovenia in their first game cost them dearly as, despite their creditable draw with hosts Portugal in their second match, they finished third. The Portuguese won the group by beating Slovenian today leaving them in second place us in on a day when the Welsh senior side and one of their age group teams scored eighteen goals between them.
*Turns out Wales have scored seven in my time supporting them, it was in 1978 when we beat Malta 7-0 at Wrexham with Ian Edwards (who?) scoring four of them if I remember rightly.
https://youtu.be/JXx8c0dWUak?si=ltUa-z65HPWpkIyP
Thanks as ever, Paul.
When the team was announced, I confess to thinking ‘we will miss not having Kieffer up front’. But I need not have worried: we had Harry… who scored a marvellous hat-trick.
And it took me back to May 2021 and the first hat-trick of Harry’s professional career: an even better hat-trick, with ironically Kieffer alongside. But it was not for Wales, but for us… at St Andrews.
Mick McCarthy called it the best hat-trick he’d ever seen, and in truth it came a bit out of the blue*, for he had quite often ‘phoned in’ his performances in that season-long loan and cynics were saying he really only pulled his finger out for that game, as his agent had advised it the perfect time to remind EPL teams of his talent.
But boy, did he not show us what a sublime player he was on Tuesday…?! And he spoke so well afterwards… as indeed did Craig, but then he always does.
Special praise goes to Bellamy for the best performance of Wales in Cardiff in my longish lifetime… a performance probably only bettered this century by that wonderful win over Belgium in the 2016 Euros.
That 4th goal was a thing of beauty: I have always championed long passes, but am very happy with short ones as long as they are played at speed and are FORWARD in direction.
Every player excelled themselves on the night, with Johnson I reckon playing his best game for Wales… much appreciated, as it was admittedly long overdue.
Also I was pleased to see a guy who I said (on MAYA) we should buy when he was playing for ‘The Port’ a few years back… and is now doing well with Bolton (one of my three tips for automatic promotion – along with Bradford and Stockport – at the start of this season).
And talking of my belief in my ability to ‘pick a player’ for future mini-stardom… brings me to Scotland who inevitably stole the headlines from us on yesterday’s national news.
I’d like your view on this Paul…
Five years ago I told my nephew an avid Man Utd fan that they had only one player who had the potential to be a superstar, and that was young Scott McTominay… just taking his first tentative strides in their midfield.
I pride myself in knowing my soccer**…
I think my nephew thought I was mad… but he was not alone. The Man Utd hierarchy did not value him (even when he was regularly scoring vital last minute winners) and eventually let him go to play outstandingly for Napoli and win recognition as the Serie A ‘Most Valuable Player’ award for season 24/25.
I love the bloke.
On Tuesday night, in the 3rd minute, he scored with an outstanding piece of athleticism. Good thing I was not refereeing though, as I would have whistled for an offence on his part.
No, on second thoughts, I would not… not if I wanted to get out of there alive…!! There would have been a riot.
But, very few football fans know the laws of the game: and yes, bicycle kicks are indeed allowed, but only if there is no danger to an opposing player who might intend to head that ball away. Yes, his contact with the ball is astonishingly high and well above the defender’s head… but that ain’t the point. The defender (seeing Scott uncoiling himself to spring to the skies, and fearful he might lose an eye to his boot) unquestionably pulls out of a full-blooded jump himself where crucially he would have made body contact with Scott… and jolted him out of his perfect levitation… without it being deemed sufficient to be a foul on the defender’s part.
VAR should have intervened and asked the referee to look again at the pitch-side monitor…
https://tinyurl.com/yakubdfr
*pun unintentional, though he was indeed ‘out of the blue’ that day, as we were in our change strip.
**deliberate usage… a British word, not American.
TTFN,
Dai.
Just watched the Chelsea v Barca game all the way through on BBC 2. A fascinating battle of wits.
And I write because the star of the show was not on the pitch, but in the commentary box. At last Nia Jones is getting recognition outside Wales… and she starred too on Tuesday alongside Simon Davies.
I reckon that I prefer her on co-comms to any man.
DW
That’s some statement Dai to say Tuesday was the best Welsh display in Cardiff in your lifetime, but, thinking about what I’ve seen over a sixty year period, there can’t be too many contenders to better it. 1-0 wins over Germany and Belgium around a quarter of a century apart would be candidates and I think my favourite is Wales 2 Italy 1 because we didn’t win that game by backs to the wall defending, we went out and took a very good side on and deservedly beat them. I think I still just about favour the Italy win, but not by much – I suppose my decision is influenced by the fact that I thought North Macedonia were pretty poor and seemed to give up once it was 4-1, but, then again, you could say with some justification that Wales made them look bad.
Did you really tip Bradford for promotion at the start of the season?
Agree about Josh Sheehan who I have advocated City signing on quite a few occasions down the years. I don’t know if it’s his Swansea background or that he’s seen as blocking Rubin Colwill’s path into the Welsh team, but he’s not popular on the messagebpards I use – for myself, I don’t think he’s ever let Wales down and I thought he was excellent on Tuesday.
I was never much of a Scott McTominay fan while he was at Manchester United, but thre was the occasional eye catching performance for Scotland to suggest there was more to him than I was seeing when he wore red and not blue. That said, I’ll concede that, as someone who thinks he’s not bad at “spotting” players, he wasn’t someone I saw reaching his current levels.
One other thing, I agree about the fourth goal on Tuesday – the best of the bunch for me, but did you see that there were 22 continuous Welsh passes in the build up to the second goal and there may have been.one or two more than that as the camera was on a close up shot of a North Macedonia player when the move began.
Nia Jones got a terrible hammering in the thread about Tuesday’s game on the messageboard I use and, as someone who had always quite liked her, I’ve thought that she has talked too much in her commentaries at the last two international breaks. Mind you, that could be down to the influence of Simon Davies who is the worst commentator I’ve come across on BBC or iTV in the past half century and more. Davies is the complete opposite of the great television commnetators of my youth (e’g’ Benaud, Barry Davies, Arlott, when he did televisions commentaries, and Allis) who tended to follow the “less is more” maxim – they let the pictures do the talking for much of the time, trusting the viewer to have enough understanding of what they were watching to take in what was happening. Instead of that, Davies bombards you with the bleeding obvious and not only that he repeats it incessantly during the game – how many times did he tell an audience who, surely, knew it already that Wales would be at home in the Play Offs if they won?
However, Davies surpassed himself on Tuesday when, on three occasions, he betrayed his belief that North Macedonia’s goal was an equaliser and the score was 1-1! Can a sports commentator make a bigger mistake than getting the score wrong on three occasions? How he got his job is a mystery to me and how he keeps it is a bigger one!
Paul, compadre,
Yes, I endorse most every word of your summing up. And you are right, Simon Davies can’t hold a candle to Nia in terms of their respective quality.
I too noted his 1-1 howler when it became 2-1… as howlers go though it was not quite up there with that Peter Alliss classic when a chap sinks a putt at the 18th in a prestigious golf tournament and Peter said something along the lines of ‘he has won it!’ … only for it to be a trifle premature: the chap had just forced a play-off…
Last night, the gifted Robyn Cowen gave Nia more room to express herself: one suspects that Simon keeps her on a tighter leash.
The one area where I would part company with you on is your clear love of the ‘pass, pass, pass’.
Is my inside cheek suffering from internal bruising when I say that 22 passes mean that someone ain’t doing their job right…?! (Usually it means that either one team’s defence aren’t tackling effectively, or the other team’s attackers are shot-shy.)
No, I think I really DO mean it… for the most thrilling goal for me last season was scored by Kaoru Mitoma… and that required just ONE assist.
I challenge anyone to watch Scott Arfield’s goal here and NOT find themselves nodding off somewhere in the 60 passes.
https://tinyurl.com/36ksrmwc
TTFN,
Dai.
Have Rangers managed to complete sixty passes yet this season?
Nice one, Paul… even if it betrays your Celtic allegiance…
Seriously though, you might have a point there. Rangers have been desperate all season.
But I would have loved Danny Rohl at Cardiff… so maybe he offers hope.
DW