Finland match is ‘massive’ for Wales, says Bale
Bale says making the step up to League A is key to facing stronger opposition and gauging the progress the team is making. Wales are a point clear of second-placed Finland going into the game
Gareth Bale said Wales must secure the point they need in a “massive match” with Finland on Wednesday and guarantee promotion to the top tier of the Nations League.
Bale says making the step up to League A is key to facing stronger opposition and gauging the progress the team is making.
Wales area point clear of second-placed finland going into the game.
“It’s a massive game for us,” said Bale at a press conference on Tuesday.
“To win the group and get promoted is something we set out to do at the start.
“It’s important for us as a country to get that winning mentality and that feeling going into the Euros in the summer.
“We want to get beter and improve and the only way we’ll do that is by playing beter teams.”
Bale is Wales’ record goal scorer with 33 but he has not added to the tally in the past 13 months.
However, the 31-year-old says his old sharpness is returning, having had a decent run of fitness and some game time since he re-joined Totenham Hotspur on loan from Real Madrid.
“The more games I’m playing the beter the body is adapting,” he said.
“I still need to get a litle fiter and sharper but
I am geting there.
“It takes a bit of time when you’re a bit older, but I am just excited to get back to full fitness and hopefully it won’t be too long.
“Leading into the Euros in the summer, that’s where I want to be peaking.”
Bale was integral to Wales’s fairytale run to the Euro 2016 semi-finals, where they lost to eventual champions Portugal.
This time round they may fancy their chances of making the knockout stages again having been drawn in a group with Italy, Switzerland and Turkey.
ENGLAND HOST ICELAND: England welcome Iceland to Wembley in the Nations League on Wednesday in what is virtually a dead rubber following the teams’ exits from the competition earlier in the week.
England knew they needed to overcome belgium on Sunday to stand a chance of progressing from Group A2, but they were defeated 2-0 away from home. Meanwhile, Iceland’s search for a victory – or even a point – in the tournament remained unsuccessful when they were beaten 2-1 by denmark ater conceding a penalty in the dying moments of the match.
England coach Gareth Southgate will at least hope to use this meeting as an opportunity to try out different options in terms of personnel and – potentially – tactics, following criticism of his cautious approach in the Belgium game.
Meanwhile, Jordan Henderson and Raheem Sterling will miss England’s fixture, the Football Association has announced.
Liverpool captain Henderson suffered a knock during Sunday’s loss away to Belgium, while Manchester City forward Sterling has withdrawn because of a calf problem.
An FA statement issued Monday said the two players had returned to their respective clubs for further assessment.
Southgate will now continue his preparations for his side’s final game of the year with a 22-man squad.
During their run to the semi-finals in 2018, England seemed to have solved the long-standing puzzle of how to find a way to inject the quality, tempo and excitement of Premier League football into the national team’s style of play.
Finally, Southgate had created a team where players were performing in the same manner, with the same intensity and positivity, that they showed with their clubs every week.
But there was no hint of a Liverpool or Manchester City style on Sunday, not even a flavour of
Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City or Jose Mourinho’s Totenham Hotspur -- and there hasn’t been for some time.
If England’s performance echoed anything from the Premier League, it was more Steve Bruce’s Newcastle United, with its excessive caution or more generously, Graham Poter’s Brighton & Hove Albion -- prety in parts, but ultimately lacking a threat.
Southgate could point to the enforced absence of forwards Sterling and Rashford as an explanation for his team’s feebleness in atack. However, as he showed with his belated introduction of Dominic Calvert-lewin and Jadon Sancho, he still had plenty of atacking options. The problem is - Southgate appears afraid to use them.
A team line-up with a five man defence and two holding midfielders may work in nullifying a perceived threat but it isn’t much use when it has failed to do that and trails by two goals.
Most worrying of all for England supporters, Southgate appeared oblivious to his team’s failure to mount any kind of sustained effort to turn the game around. “We don’t like losing but enormous credit to the team. All the way through they created problems and defended resiliently. I thought we were excellent.”