Delight for Ward and his team as Bale hits stunning hat-trick to beat Belarus
ENJOYABLE WEEKEND FOR CITY’S INTERNATIONALS
LEICESTER City’s international stars enjoyed a fruitful weekend in World Cup qualifying.
Kasper Schmeichel, Danny Ward, and Caglar Soyuncu all played out victories to boost their chances of reaching Qatar next year, albeit some of the wins were less comfortable than anticipated.
On Saturday, Schmeichel captained Denmark as they travelled to minnows Faroe Islands, where they needed an 85th-minute winner from Jonas Wind to keep up their perfect record in qualifying.
“It was not pretty by any means,” the City goalkeeper said afterwards.
“But yes, we are standing here and have won a match away in a World Cup qualifier, and I think I have to keep myself happy about it.
“These matches are sometimes the most difficult because you get up here on a difficult artificial pitch with the crowd and a team that plays the match of their lives against us.
“The most important thing today was that we won.
“And as I said, it was not nice, we are very well aware of that, but it may be a good thing that we can learn from this, that there are simply no easy matches at this level.”
Schmeichel’s City deputy Ward enjoyed an even later victory with Wales yesterday.
He conceded twice in two firsthalf minutes as Wales trailed at the break in Belarus.
But Gareth Bale scored his second penalty of the game midway through the second period, and then completed his hat-trick in the third minute of injury time to earn a 3-2 victory.
Wales are third in their group behind Belgium and Czech Republic, who met last night, with Youri Tielemans and Timothy Castagne both starting for their nation.
Tielemans was back in the team after missing Thursday’s game against Estonia with a sore ankle.
For Caglar Soyuncu and Turkey, three second-half goals eased them to a 3-0 win in Gibraltar, the City defender able to play after missing the first game of the international break through Covid restrictions.
Turkey sit one point above the Netherlands, who they face next, and Norway in their group.
On Friday night, Daniel Amartey helped Ghana keep a clean sheet as they beat Ethiopia 1-0.
As is the case with Kelechi Iheanacho and Wilfred Ndidi with Nigeria, and Patson Daka with Zambia, Amartey won’t be able to feature in the Black Stars’ trip to South Africa today as the game is taking place in a red-list country.