Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

Enjoying the performance of a team I was supporting has been something of a rarity this season, but, to some extent anyway, it happened twice yesterday.

To start with the second of the matches, Wales’ 1-0 win over Belarus in a friendly game in front of a crowd of 7,666 at Cardiff City Stadium (apparently, tickets were priced at £20 for a match which, it seems to me, would have made more sense to play at, say, Llanelli or Wrexham) was that relatively rare animal – a friendly international match that was worth watching (not sure someone from Belarus would say that mind).

It would be wrong to say that there haven’t been good friendly performances by Wales down the years – for example, wins over Brazil, Argentina and Germany should never be scoffed at, I can recall big wins over Scotland, a victory in Denmark and, my own recent favourite, a Gareth Bale inspired beating of Iceland.

However, too often, these games fall into the instantly forgettable category and while I don’t see Wales v Belarus in 2019 being talked about at any great length ten years from now, it was a night when Ryan Giggs’ Wales showed some of the potential which shone through in their 4-1 beating of Ireland last year and, at times, in the 1-0 victory over Slovakia which started the current qualifying campaign off.

The Slovakian’s, who probably did Wales a favour by winning 2-1 in Hungary last night, left Cardiff beaten by a single Daniel James goal scored early in the game and they same fate befell the Belarusians. James struck in the sixteenth minute when, not for the first time, Wales pressed their opponents, won the ball and broke at speed as Jonny Williams fed James who cut inside and shot home from the edge of the penalty area with his right foot. My instinct on seeing the goal for the first time was to question the goalkeeping, but I was put right by the first replay I saw of the goal – Plotnikov in the Belarus goal was given no chance as James used a covering defender almost a guide and a blocker of the keeper’s line of sight as he curled the ball around them and into the corner – it was a high quality finish by a player at the top of his game.

More incisive, decisive and pacey than on Friday, the criticism I would aim at Wales is why was their victory margin only one? To some extent, there was bad luck as when Harry Wilson, more influential than against Azerbaijan, shot against the inside of a post from the corner of the penalty area, but the performance of Williams, who I see has been given a man of the match rating by both the BBC and Wales Online rather summed things up for me – “Joniesta” has always been one of my favourite Welsh players because he is so brave in possession, but I thought he lost the ball in promising positions too many times, especially in the second half, to be deserving of such an accolade.

Wales were also guilty of poor finishing at times, with there being no bigger culprit than Gareth Bale, who replaced James for the last thirty five minutes, when he blazed over left footed from eight yards after being set up by a lovely cross from Wilson following a clever, quickly taken, free kick from Ben Davies who, surely, has to come back into the starting line up for the two very important qualifiers to be played next month.

As against Azerbaijan, there needs to be a rider that much bigger tests will come along pretty quickly for the inexperienced central defensive pairing of Mepham and Rodon, but, again, they looked good on the international stage, while there was a promising first appearance in midfield for Joe Morrell, a twenty two year Bristol City player currently on loan at Lincoln.

It should be said as well that Belarus didn’t come across as the most committed of opponents, but, even so, Wales, and their manager, did their cause no harm last night and will go into their games in Slovakia and at home to Croatia in a slightly better frame of mind as a result of what I would call a quietly impressive showing.

Mention of Croatia brings me on to noting that, maybe, the poor showing against Azerbaijan should be reassessed somewhat following their 1-1 home draw with the group favourites yesterday. The point did take Croatia to the top of the table with ten points, while Slovakia now join Hungary on nine having looked to have suffered a possibly terminal blow to their qualifying hopes with that big home defeat by Croatia on Friday.

Last night’s result will make Wales’ task in Slovakia that bit harder, but last night offered hints as to how we could do well over there and then we need to improve on what is a pretty woeful record against Croatia when we face them in Cardiff. We have the advantage of a game in hand on the top three and I feel we could afford to lose one of our last four matches and still qualify as long as the other three were won.

A few hours before the game I was across the road at Leckwith watching City’s under 23 team avoid defeat for the first time this season when they took on Bolton. Indeed, a young side with only the experienced keeper Brian Murphy being an over age player did more than just avoid defeat, they won, again by 1-0, despite having to play the last half an hour with ten men after having Ben Margetson red carded for two bookable offences.

Understandably, City were hanging on at the end and were grateful to Murphy for some good saves and sure handling in those closing stages, but they were well on top when Margetson was, rather harshly given that the referee saw fit to issue a second yellow to Margetson for a fairly innocuous foul on the half way line, sent off.

I enjoyed the game mainly because it gave me a first chance to see newcomers Tavio Kouakou D’Almeida and Tom Sang and only a second opportunity to watch Aaron Boulger in action.

The Irish youngster signed from Shamrock Rovers captained the side and must have impressed watching manager Neil Warnock. Boulger played the first half an hour in a holding midfield position which he filled perfectly. Although you would have thought his small physique would be against him in a team managed by Neil Warnock, he must have won upwards of three quarters of the tackles he went in for and was always available to give his team mates an option in midfield where he moved the ball on in a simple, but effective manner – on this evidence, I’ll be surprised if he does not play at least some first team football for City.

Boulger was slightly less impressive when he moved further forward after about half an hour to switch positions with D’Alemeida. The eighteen year old signed from Auxerre can, apparently, operate as a right back, but here he was in midfield and enjoyed a very influential middle third of the game showing a wider passing range than Boulger and impressing with his defensive anticipation and all round game. D’Almeida was less conspicuous after Margetson’s dismissal, but, like Boulger, he was impressive and you could understand why he was given a place on the sub’s bench in the recent first team game with Luton.

Sang was also prominent as a neat footballer who looked like he could be a threat from free kicks and it was good to see City playing more through the midfield compared to the first game I saw the Development side play this season last month where they were much more direct and reliant on dead ball deliveries.

The goal that decided the game came a couple of minutes into the second half and was a simple one as Bolton half cleared a City attack, pushed forward and were caught out by a header by Trystan Jones I think it was which found its way through to the scorer who comfortably and coolly beat the advancing keeper from about fifteen yards.

If the execution of the goal could be called “simple”, identifying the scorer is anything but that! City’s website and Twitter feed are calling him a trialist, but he has been identified by another website as Liam Soule, a striker who was prominent in West Brom’s run to the Semi Final of the FA Youth Cup last season – I believe he scored in every round for them. Indeed, judging by this story, Borussia Dortmund see him as another Jadon Sancho!

However, the Sun have a different take on the player’s name and, looking at those photos of him, I’m fairly sure he’s not the player I was watching yesterday. The team sheet listed the trialist as Liam Sole and when I looked that name up on my phone at the game, I found this .

Sole is listed as now being without a club on other sites and looks a lot more like the player I saw score yesterday than the one being described as one of West Brom’s best young prospects does – given the career paths of both players and the visual evidence, I think it’s more likely that we have taken a former MK Dons player on trial.

I mentioned Neil Warnock earlier, he was there with his wife watching their son William who started the match at right wing back and then switched to a full back role after Margetson’s dismissal. It was only the second time I’m awareof having seen him play and, being diplomatic, his substitution at half time the first time I watched him did not come as a surprise to me, but he was a lot more impressive yesterday, showing himself to be a dogged defender and accomplished crosser of a ball.