Wales crave momentum but, a few days after surely the sweetest high of Craig Bellamy’s two-year reign, a sapping international window ended on a bum note. At least until Bellamy was informed Portugal’s comeback victory over Norway means Wales will spend the next six weeks in third, and not bottom of Nations League A4 owing to their superior head-to-record. “That’s actually quite nice,” the Wales head coach said, slowly digesting the silver lining about half an hour after the final whistle. “That’s brightened up a real rubbish moment.”
Bellamy suggested last Thursday’s victory over Norway blew the group wide open with a hand grenade but Danny Ward detonated one to give Denmark a second-half penalty and Rasmus Højlund’s flawless spot-kick ultimately proved the difference. The galling thing for Ward was that until his moment of madness, he had kept his country in the game, his best stop a sublime right-hand save to deny Gustav Isaksen. A first clean sheet since beating Liechtenstein last November also went out of the window for Wales. The life of a goalkeeper, eh?
The difficulty for Wales was always going to be trying to replicate the all-action performance from their triumph over Norway, the obvious caveat that their opponents played almost all of the second half with 10 men. The emotions felt after that game were always going to be hard to match but despite the awkward 7.45pm kick-off on a Sunday night, the Barry Horns, the brass brand who enthusiastically soundtrack Wales matches, made a racket and contributed to a fine atmosphere. Even without a full house, the anthem was stirring if not spine-tingling.
Bellamy said it was impossible to keep the same XI owing to the toll of four matches across 11 days but in the end Daniel James was the only player to make way, Brennan Johnson taking his place on the wing. Ben Davies, whose only minutes for Tottenham came against a Charlton Athletic B team in the Carabao Cup, started a fourth successive game this window, together with Neco Williams and Ethan Ampadu, whose Leeds team visit Arsenal in Saturday’s early kick-off when the Premier League resumes. Ward also made it four in a row and in doing so has played four times as many games for his country as he has this season for his club, Wrexham.
It is a familiar problem for Wales and Bellamy, who is hopeful Joe Rodon will return from a hamstring injury in time for next month’s trip to Oslo and home date with Portugal. “We started well and then as the game unfolded, the intensity started to drop for us,” said the 47-year-old. “We couldn’t sustain the intensity, we couldn’t get the energy up enough to be able to have a bigger say in the game. I felt it in the first half: we’re not moving enough now. We tried to make one or two substitutions to freshen it up. We shouldn’t really have played Ben – I’m just hoping he’s not injured but he’s a warrior. We don’t have enough players playing week in, week out, certainly not at the top level. When you don’t do this week in, week out, it’s a shock to the system. It was a touch of reality.”
Ward’s first real save, to deny Højlund at the start of the second half, was smart but his second was phenomenal. Joakim Mæhle raced down the left and before reaching the byline flung into the box a feathery, hanging cross. Isaksen, of Lazio, tracked the ball all the way and cleverly adjusted his body position to pick his spot, the target the bottom right-hand corner of Ward’s goal. Isaksen appeared to have executed the perfect header but Ward got a brilliant right hand to the ball and pushed it on to his right post. At that point, Ward was Wales’s hero.
But then, out of nothing, Ward conceded a clumsy penalty. Ben Cabango shifted the ball to his goalkeeper, from right to left, but Ward, looking to move the ball on again, inadvertently shovelled a miskicked pass straight to Isaksen. A panicked Ward tried to make amends but his desperation got the better of him and he clattered into Isaksen and the damage was done. Højlund waited for Ward to dive to his left and slotted the ball into the opposite corner.
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Sorba Thomas threatened on the left flank, intermittently destroying the Denmark right-back Rasmus Kristensen and Liam Cullen, now of Leicester, was industrious as a playmaker. But Wales failed to test Mads Hermansen, a former Leicester clubmate of Ward’s. It was almost as if this was the fourth game in a marathon camp. “Physically, it makes no sense,” Bellamy said. “We know it’s a complete disadvantage to us … I think, really, it is designed for the elite.”
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