Bale ends 64 years of Welsh hurt
Wales tear up the script to write an emotional fairytale all of their own
WALES qualified for their first World Cup for 64 years yesterday after beating Ukraine 1-0 in a thrilling play-off final to set up a clash with England in Qatar. Gareth Bale hailed ‘the greatest result in the history of Welsh football’, which was sealed when his 34th-minute free-kick was turned into his own net by Ukraine winger Andriy Yarmolenko. Wales held on to qualify for Qatar, their first global finals since 1958 in Sweden. They join Group B with England, Iran and the United States — and will face Gareth Southgate’s side on November 29. ‘It’s the greatest result in the history of Welsh football,’ said Bale. ‘We’re so ecstatic, and we’re going to a World Cup! It’s what dreams are made of — I’m speechless.’
ABEAuTifuL tale played out here, it just wasn’t the one about small mercies in hell. About sport bringing shades of hope to gruesome pictures. No, it wasn’t that. it was the Welsh story and in its own way, it was magnificent.
important? Not in the context of wars. A pure delight to those it involved? A wonderful culmination to lesser journeys? Goodness, it will take some time for the red smoke to clear from the sky over this stadium.
When the game was done, and what a slog it was, those exhausted players danced like maniacs. The mystery centred on where they found the energy after 90 minutes of swallowing big hits.
On one end of the merry line was Gareth Bale, arms a waving blur after one of his less pronounced performances. At the other was Burnley’s reserve keeper, Wayne
Hennessey, floating after the display of his life, and somewhere in the middle was Ben Davies, an exhausted man of priceless blocks. in a heap was Neco Williams, the Liverpool right back who turned ukrainians inside-out on the left.
As a collective, they were links in a chain that somehow withstood the well-placed goodwill of the sporting world, links in a chain that finally pulled Wales to the World
Cup for the first time since 1958. That stretch has been tough, taking in, among other dusty stops, the Joe Jordan handball against Scotland of 1977, the iffy penalty against the same opposition in 1985 and the Paul Bodin one against Romania in 1993. Local gripes, anxieties and irritations, mainly. Not a war, but these things always matter in their way and for Wales it was a long list.
Which made it appropriate that the final step was so tough, because they were actually pretty poor here. And lucky. Oleksandr Zinchenko did lovely things in ukraine’s midfield and of 32 shots in the 90 minutes, 22 came from ukraine, including most of the decent ones. Had Wales not had Hennessey, they might have lost by three or four. There was also a nailed-on penalty not given against Joe Allen.
So it was against that pummelling that Wales won, with a Bale free-kick diverted into his own goal by Andriy Yarmolenko. it was cruel as the former West Ham man had played well. What good a ukraine win might have been for those who needed it more.
But sport does not always give you what you want and this time it went with Wales, whose narrative is loaded with lesser dramas, like Rob Page resurrecting them out of the ashes of Ryan Giggs’s problems, and the Bale swansong. Not to mention the value of a team that regularly exceeds its parts.
When it went their way, the ukrainians left the pitch, applauded off as they had been applauded on. They returned to the dressing room where a flag hung after being sent over by soldiers from the front line and you can only wish them well in the bigger, more important picture.
Set against what their manager, Oleksandr Petrakov, said next, it was indeed only a game: ‘We have war raging all over the country. We have children and women dying, our infrastructure ruined by Russian barbarians.
‘The Russians want to hurt us but ukrainians are defending their land. We just want your support, we want your understanding. God forbid you will ever understand what we feel inside.’
it rather made a mockery of prematch assumptions around fatigue
and the idea that two games in four days might be a burden after the win over Scotland. This side was unchanged and by extension that included six men who had not played club football this year. That against a fresh Welsh team with home advantage.
It was a line of thinking that resoundingly undersold what was driving the away team.
In the first 15 minutes Oleksandr Karavaev, Viktor Tsygankov and Roman Yaremchuk all tested Hennessey. The one that got through, a free-kick by Zinchenko, was disallowed for being taken too soon. Chances too numerous to mention followed, with Wales regularly caught out by the one-touch passing of Ukraine’s midfield, often in the space behind the brilliant Williams, who had been given licence to roam.
On occasion, the scale of the game seemed too big for the Welsh, daft early bookings for Allen and Dan James a bad sign. But when they most needed it, rescue came from a familiar place. Whether or not Bale was shooting from his free-kick only he knows, but when Yarmolenko headed it into his own net, not many Welsh fans stopped to ask questions.
More Ukrainian attacks followed, including Yarmolenko’s penalty appeal against Allen, and a mass of saves from a back-up keeper accompanied them.
It was that kind of story. Not the one you may have wanted, but brilliant nonetheless.