Before this international break, I thought three points with a scrappy 1-0 win in the home game with Latvia would be a satisfactory return from our first two matches in this qualifying group for Euros 2024.
Having got the bonus of Saturday’s wholly unexpected point in Croatia, I daresay expectations rosé for tonight’s home match with the Latvians and so there may be a bit of a sense of disappointment that we couldn’t manage more than a single goal win over a team ranked one hundred and five places below us in one hundred and thirty third in the world ratings.
I can see both sides of the argument when it comes to whether the match deserved the description “scrappy” or not. On the one hand, Wales were careless at times and I thought, especially when it was 0-0, they moved the ball too slowly, yet when they picked up the pace, notably during the first quarter of an hour of the second half, I thought we played some nice stuff – the Fulham pair Dan James and Harry Wilson were more influential than they had been in recent matches for their country and my man of the match Neco Williams was good throughout.
However, as mentioned in my piece on the Croatia game, those three players are among a raft of Wales’ starting eleven (we were unchanged from Saturday) who are not getting regular game time at their clubs and I think it’s entirely possible that Wales could not have maintained the pace of play that Latvia struggled to cope with even if the plan had been to try and run them off their feet.
One other consideration is that Wales had gone nine competitive matches without a win. Time was that wouldn’t have been too unusual for a Welsh team, but not anymore. Retirement of legends from our greatest years or not, standards have risen now and this win was overdue. However, the fact it has been so long in coming may have been an influence as to why going looking for more goals to boost goal difference in what was, on paper, the easiest of the eight games we’ll play in the qualification phase never looked like it was on the cards.
Just getting the three points was enough and the closing minutes were more about keeping a Latvian side that looked better than their lowly ranking (they were only beaten by group winners the Netherlands in away games in World Cup 2022 qualifying) out than chasing the second goal that would have clinched the game.
I say Latvia didn’t look too bad a team, but they didn’t have a great deal to offer going forward and they looked a side not used to scoring as they wasted promising looking positions in the last fifteen minutes through a mixture of wild shooting from improbable positions and wrong options taken when looking to pass.
The visitors best attacking moments came in the first half as Danny Ward made a good save to deny Marcis Oss from a corner and then towering striker Vladislav Gutkovskis’ back heel forced the keeper into another diving save – Oss also headed wide from a good position as Wales left him unmarked from a corner.
Up the other end, Wales best attack of the first forty minutes came early on when Keiffer Moore’s dummy of a low James cross led to a shot by Wilson which Pavels Steinbors, Latvia’s impressive thirty eight year old goalkeeper, turned aside.
Apart from that, Wales were reduced to shots from outside the penalty area with Moore, Williams and Ethan Ampadu all having well struck efforts that didn’t miss by too much.
Whether the game was scrappy or not, the goal which won it was anything but that as Aaron Ramsey fed James who stood up a lovely cross to the far post which Moore nodded home in exemplary fashion from about eight yards for his tenth international goal.
Latvia we’re on the back foot for the minutes which remained of the first half as they lost their discipline somewhat and a better referee than Georgian Giorgio Kruashvili would have used his yellow card more during this spell.
Steinbors foiled Wilson again by turning aside a twenty five yarder in the half’s last action, but he saved his best work for the minutes after the break as he tipped a Williams shot on to the crossbar and over and then denied Wilson again, this time from an angled volley from twelve yards.
Once Wales’ bright second half start blew itself out though, the rest of the game was a more cagey affair with them mindful of holding on to what they had. This they largely managed to do with few alarms apart from when Ward saved from Gutkovskis again – although you had to think that better attacking sides than Latvia would have made more of the sort of late opportunities I mentioned earlier.
The other game tonight in the group went the way Wales would have wanted I’d say as Croatia went to Turkey and won 2-0. The Turks had started with a 2-1 win in Armenia and those two teams will be Wales’ opponents in June when they entertain the Armenians before heading to Turkey – if we could manage another four points from those two matches, I’d say we’d be well on our way to qualifying.
It was a very good international break overall for Wales with the under 18 side drawing 2-2 with Scotland thanks to goals from the City pair Japhet Matondo and Tanatswa Nyakuhwa. There was also a fine performance by the under 21s in beating Scotland 3-0 on Sunday with Eli King doing well in his holding midfield role and Rubin Colwill having an outstanding game as he contributed two assists while earning glowing tributes from the Scottish commentators on the stream I watched.
Pride of place must go to the under 17s though who, although not playing well and being some way below their best with their passing, just about managed to get the outcome they wanted when it came to a first ever qualification for the Euros.
There were three City players in the starting line up against Montenegro this lunchtime with Dylan Lawlor and Luey Giles in the back four and Troy Perrett in midfield. With Wales needing a win to ensure they topped the group, it was Giles who came closest for them in the first half with a shot against the crossbar, but a nightmare sixty seconds for the Welsh in added time saw them concede twice to Montenegro’s Vasilije Adzic.
With Scotland and Iceland drawing 0-0 at the break, this meant that the Montenegrins had gone from bottom to top of the group in that one minute and the Scots were now above us as well.
Thankfully, Swansea’s Iwan Morgan got a goal back three minutes into the second half, but it was still nervy stuff from the Welsh and when Morgan somehow shot wide from four yards and then missed a very presentable headed chance within thirty seconds, it looked like it wasn’t going to be their day.
However, with less than five minutes to go, centreback Lawlor became the unlikely Welsh hero as he back heeled a cross from the left in from six yards to bring the scores level. Montenegro now had to go for the win, but they had little left to give and Wales played out the rest of the game knowing a draw would be good enough for second place at least.
As it was, with the Scotland v Iceland match finishing 0-0, nothing really had been changed by the last pair of matches as Montenegro stayed fourth with two points, Iceland got three draws, Scotland had four points and Wales five, so it was the Scots who had to sweat it out for a few hours while they waited for confirmation that they had qualified by finishing as one of the best seven placed sides out of the eight group runners up.
Scotland scraped through as the seventh best runners up, while Wales had the worst record of the group winners and so will be seeded in pot two in the draw for the group stage – they will have two group winners from pot one and a runner up from pot two as opponents unless they get drawn in Group A which will contain hosts Hungary and only one pot one side.
