Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

I think it’s fair to say that Robert Page has been thought of as a pretty defensive manager of Wales since he took over from Ryan Giggs last year, but he went a long way towards getting people to revise those opinions with his attitude in tonight’s very important qualifier in Prague against the Czech Republic.

The desperately disappointing goalless draw with Estonia at Cardiff City Stadium last month had seen this labelled as a must win match and the way Rob Page reacted as a match that offered all of the entertainment that many recent games have lacked strongly suggested he thought it was.

Looking at it now though after a 2-2 draw which left me thinking that we should have won, if we accept that Belgium were always going to win the group, then a draw doesn’t look too bad an outcome. In fact, now that we have the benefit of taking four points from six against the Czechs, I’m pretty sure that we’ll finish second if we win in Estonia on Monday and then beat Belarus at home next month – with the Czechs only having two matches left to play, it means that can only get to fourteen points and we can match that before we get to play Belgium.*

Some may think that I’m putting too much emphasis on the importance of coming second in the group when our Nations League success offers us a possible route to qualification already. Maybe I am, but it may mean a home Semi Final in the Play Offs and, even if it doesn’t, it will continue a run of good finishes in our last four qualification groups with only the one when we were pipped by the Republic of Ireland in the quest for a 2018 World Cup Finals place being considered a disappointment.

As usual, Wales had important players missing, Gareth Bale was the one that made the headlines of course, but the non Covid illness related drop outs of Ben Davies and David Brooks certainly didn’t help. Still, we did have Aaron Ramsey fit and captaining the side and, although 20/21 has been a pretty miserable season so far for Keiffer Moore, the line that we look a lot more dangerous when he plays still holds true after tonight.

In saying that, Keiffer is clearly lacking a bit of confidence in front of goal at the moment and this showed as, for the first of what turned out to be three or four speedy counter attacks, Wales’ positivity in keeping players upfield when defending set pieces combined with the Czech’s committing so many men forward threatened to present us with a valuable lead.

Wales were left with a clear two on one as Dan James fastened on to Ramsey’s astute pass. Unfortunately though, the Leeds man slightly delayed and then over hit his pass to Moore which meant that Tomas Vaclik, the home keeper, was able to almost be on top of the City striker as he attempted his shot and so made a decent save, but you couldn’t help thinking that it was a chance that the 20/21 Keiffer would have put away last season.

The encouraging thing for Wales though was that there was little sign that this would be an isolated opportunity for them as we enjoyed the better of things for the majority of the first half and when Ethan Ampadu and Ramsey combined to send Neco Williams surging down the right, the wing back’s cross glanced off James’ head into the path of Ramsey who had sped sixty yards forward to receive the ball on the far post.

There was still a lot for Ramsey, booked after about twenty seconds by fussy German referee Aytekin, to do, but he showed great composure to dummy Vaclik and then thread his shot beyond the three defenders covering behind the keeper.

Criminally, Wales lost their lead within less than two minutes as their three central defenders were all drawn towards the ball, leaving Novak free to get in a shot which may have been going just wide, but Danny Ward, who had made a good early save to deny Hlozek after Ampadu had presented the Czechs with the ball from a throw in, sprawled to save it and the ball fell into the path of Pesek who scored easily from eight yards.

I wouldn’t criticize Ward at all for that goal, but just four minutes after half time, there was no one else to blame but him for an awful howler which presented the home team with a lead which they did precisely nothing to create themselves as Ramsey won the ball and passed it twenty yards back to his keeper. Yes, there was a bit too much pace on the pass and, ideally, it would have been played wide of goal, but we’re often told Ward is very good with the ball at his feet and there was certainly nothing panicky in the way he tried to deal with the situation. In fact, Ward was, if anything, too casual and ended up getting the slightest of touches on the ball as he allowed it to trundle past him into the net – the television coverage gave it as a Ramsey own goal, but it should be debited against the keeper for a blunder which threatened to consign us to a defeat which would have considerably weakened our chances of getting second place.

For a while, the Czechs were in the ascendancy as Wales struggled to recover from their self inflicted wound, but the tide began to turn again with the introduction of  Harry Wilson and Connor Roberts for Chris Gunter and Joe Morrell. Even though he is just back from injury, Robert’s, predictably, offered more of a threat down the right than Gunter did and Havlik was soon forced into a save from a Moore header, but it was when Wilson began to get involved that the contest definitely began to swing back in our favour.

Wilson, operating a bit deeper than I expected him to, set up the equaliser by finding James with a slide rule pass and the winger confidently added another goal against the Czechs to go with his winner against them at Cardiff City Stadium – there was a nerve racking wait for a VAR check on a possible offside before the goal was confirmed mind.

Within a minute, Wilson was at it again as he picked out Ramsey in a congested penalty area and the skipper forced Havlik into another save. Wales, with Huddersfield’s Sorva Thomas on for a debut in place of Williams, were now enjoying their best spell of the match as Ramsey was inches from turning in a Moore header that bounced just wide, while the centre forward then crossed for Robert’s whose back heel flick hit the side netting.

Still Wales attacked and Page now really went for it by sending on Tyler Robert’s for Chris Mepham, but it was probably the home team who came closest to a late winner after a frantic scramble which saw four or five shots from the edge of the penalty area before one was finally fired over the top.

Defeat would have been completely undeserved though and now at least, we’ve made up for some of that damage caused by the home draw with Estonia.

A few hours earlier, a Welsh Under 21 side containing George Ratcliffe and Sam Bowen were disappointingly beaten 1-0 in Moldova in a Euro’s qualifying game and with just a draw to show from their two matches against these opponents, now have a huge task on their hands to even make the Play Offs. Wales were unlucky in many ways as they ran into a goalkeeper in good form and also hit the post, but they conceded a very sloppy goal and allowed the home team to make the game very scrappy and stop start in the second half – it was pretty poor really and they now go to the Netherlands on Tuesday needing to at least avoid defeat.

* I wrote this within ten minutes of the match finishing, but have now noted that the Czechs are still above us in the table, so can only assume that this is because of their slightly better goal difference which mean that this must be the first choice way of separating teams with the same number of points.

Even during something of a golden era for Welsh football, a 6-0 win over China in a meaningless game apart, Wales have never really won big – we don’t seem to have the capacity to really put weaker sides to the sword.

The Czech Republic match was ideal for us in attacking terms in many ways, because we were able to break on a team that were treated the match as must win as well – there were gaps to exploit that generally aren’t there when Estonia packed the bus next month. With the Estonians having beaten Belarus tonight, they’ll be very tough to overcome at home and, realistically, it’s a game that needs to just be won first and foremost – a scrappy 1-0 will do fine.

Perhaps we can build that goal difference up a bit when we entertain the Belarussians next month, but the way we’ve struggled in home matches with the likes of Israel, Georgia and Estonia in recent years suggests otherwise – I think the realistic approach is to accept that we’ll still probably have to avoid defeat against the Belgians in our final match to finish above the Czechs. Of course, that will be a very big ask, but we’ve done it quite often before and, after losing at home to France after being 2-0 up on Thursday in a Nations League Semi Final, the suspicion that the aging Belgians are not quite the force they were is growing.