Woe for Wales, and boss says it’s deserved!
WALES coach Robert Page admitted his team had fallen well below the standards they set for themselves as defeat to Iran put them on the brink of World Cup elimination. Page refused to use Wayne Hennessey’s red card as an excuse for the defeat, and said Carlos Queiroz’s team were well worth their win.
Iran hit the post twice and had a goal disallowed before they finally took the lead eight minutes into stoppage time through substitute Roozbeh Cheshmi’s long-range strike, with Ramin Rezaeian adding a breakaway second three minutes later.
Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, so often the architects of Wales’ successes down the years, were both disappointing and they now need a victory over England on Tuesday to have any hope of reaching the knockout stages.
Page even appeared to refer to the England game as Wales’ ‘final’ match of the tournament, underlining how difficult the road ahead is for the Dragons from here.
“This is a hard one to take,” Page said. “I’ve said to them before every game: ‘ Go and show the world what you show us every day,’ and that is not a true reflection of that team. “They got their true rewards, they deserved that defeat. “We fell well below the standards that got us to the World Cup, if we’d met those standards we’d have been alright. And if you do that in top competitions, you get punished.”
Asked about the England game, Page said: “We want to finish the competition on a high. g It’s out of our hands for going through, but we want to finish ish with a good d performance e and a win. We’re low at the moment, but we’ll get them back up for a tough h game to finish ish with.” Hennessey was initially shown a yellow card after he raced out of his goal and clattered into Iran’s Porto forward Mehdi Taremi, but referee Mario Escobar was advised to review the decision, and returned from the monitor brandishing a red card.
The challenge was reckless and high, regardless of whether there was cover behind him.
The win for Iran means their match against the United States – which would always have been highly charged given the political history between the nations – could now be winnertakes-all for a place in the last 16.
“It’s gutting, we’re gutted, there’s no other way to say it,” said Bale.
“We fought to the last seconds but it’s difficult to take.
“But we have to pick ourselves up p straight g away, y it’s going to be difficult diffic but we have one game left. left
“We will have h to see. What can I say? We’ll recover and we have to go g again.” He n n e s - sey’s sey rush of blood bloo left Wales with an uphill struggle with a man down. Bale added: “I haven’t seen so I don’t know - but obviously the red card changed the game completely.” Iran coach Queiroz felt too much pressure was placed on his players ahead of the England game, but was proud of his players.
“It was a joy, it was happiness, it was drama, I love this game when things are this way,” he said.
“It was really very emotional because we rebounded from a difficult situation.”