Wales reach the World Cup the hard way on a night football sadly couldn’t produce two fairy tales – The Warm-Up

From Wales to Qatar

Wales boss Robert Page set the bar pretty high when declaring the World Cup play-off against Ukraine as the biggest match in Welsh history, and the backdrop to yesterday’s tie only made the task even harder.

A frantic affair could have produced at least five goals, and should really have seen Ukraine awarded a penalty in the first half, but in the end it was Wayne Hennessey and Ben Davies who proved the difference, denying Ukraine time and again to book their own spot in Qatar.

“I probably think that’s my best game in a Welsh shirt to be honest,” Hennessey admitted, and what a time to do it, while an ecstatic Gareth Bale added: “It’s the greatest result in the history of Welsh football.”

Of course, it all came at Ukraine’s expense. Their participation alone was admirable, their performance against Scotland was something else, and on another day a handful of their chances against Wales would have gone in and they’d have made the World Cup – but alas, football doesn’t always follow the script and sadly it couldn’t produce two fairy tales in one night.

“In general I don’t think we deserved to lose, but that’s football, it happens,” Oleksandr Zinchenko said.

“Football is about emotions, we can bring some great emotions to our fans, but unfortunately today we didn’t get the result we wanted.

“Everyone needs to continue to fight, as footballers we need to represent our country as best we can.

“Everyone needs to live in peace and we need to stop the war altogether. Today it’s Ukraine, but who knows tomorrow, we need to stay together. I feel sorry for our fans, but I wish Wales all the best for the World Cup.”

Me5si

How many, Leo?

Anyway, what do you say about the man who’s done it all?

“I don’t know what else to say about Messi, it’s very difficult,” admitted Argentina boss Lionel Scaloni. “You have no words left to describe him. Everything he generates is unique and it’s a pleasure to have him in this group. I only have words of thanks to him. It’s a pleasure to see him.”

Oh, and this is a take so good we could have just nabbed it, but we’ll rightly just share the tweet instead…

Double Oh – Argentina vs Brazil this Saturday is at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, of course!

Mane, Mane, Mane

It’s a favourite here at The Warm-Up, footballers saying things they shouldn’t while away on international duty, and it’s safe to say Sadio Mane got the shovel out to do some digging after joking he’d do what the Senegalese people want and leave Liverpool.

Although he then added: “Liverpool is a club I respect a lot. The fans adopted me since day one.

“Regarding the future, we’ll see.”

Regarding what he’ll say this week, we’ll see as well – particularly with Bayern Munich getting things started…

IN OTHER NEWS

‘Inherited thinking’

That moment when a “behind closed doors” match is played in front of a 30,000-plus crowd and jeers meet an anti-racism gesture.

Yep.

It beggars belief, or, actually maybe it doesn’t any more. Sigh.

IN THE CHANNELS

Talking of World Cups… Plenty of you out there will be aware of the Footy Scran Twitter page, and its heated World Cup FINAL between Oxford City and LA Galaxy went to the wire last night.

And rather fantastically, the clubs got involved too…

RETRO CORNER

You want retro? Here’s retro, footage that may well get touched up a tad before November. Wales’ last World Cup match, a 1958 quarter-final with Brazil.

Loving that music, and the photographers heading onto the pitch after Pele scores – roughly a minute in.

COMING UP

More Nations League, with Moldova taking on Andorra and Latvia facing Liechtenstein in the toughest group D1, while down in A1 there’s a mere 2018 final World Cup repeat between France and Croatia.

Bring it on.