Wales National Team

Discussion in 'General Football & Other Sport' started by Klein Lust, Oct 8, 2021.

  1. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    Being a Watford fan in North Wales has its drawbacks. I've only ever noticed one other WFC fan, that was whilst I was a cashier in a superstore in Bangor, he was wearing a WFC top. This was whilst I was at college 25 years ago, and he was on holiday.

    They must exist, they also, like me, must hide their devotion of being a Hornet. But Wales has its advantages with being able to talk tactics and stuff with my friends about our Country. In my opinion out world ranking is way too high. Apart from Bale and Ramsey, the tram lacks much quality. We are weak in too many places. It wasn't long ago we were ranked around 120th in the world, under the Faroe Islands even.

    Even trying to get the local library to get Troy's new book is unlikely. Usually I'd purchase the book but my funds are rather tight. If anyone is willing to lend me the book, that would be awesome. I'd post it back after I've finished it, I'd maybe add on a free book as a token of gratitude. Anyone willing to help a lonely poor 'Orn?
     
    iamofwfc likes this.
  2. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    Czech Rep away, live tonight on S4C.

    Bale won't be playing, Ben Davies will be a bad loss too. We are really weak at full backs with various injuries.

    At least Rambo will be playing. Aaron Ramsey will be captain.

    My prediction is 3-0 to the Czechs
     
  3. Knight GT

    Knight GT Predictor extraordinaire 2013/14

    Strangely saw a car with a Watford sticker in Pwllheli a few years ago. I'm sure there used be guy on here that lives in North Wales (not you) and it said so in his user name. Off to North Wales in a couple of weeks. Staying in Trefor but will probably head towards Aberdaron and without question Ty Coch at some point. F
     
  4. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    A sticker, probably a tourist, but who knows. Nice part of NorthWales though.

    Nice first half by Wales, playing with plenty of heart, Ramsey and James pulling the strings.
     
  5. Relegation Certs

    Relegation Certs Squad Player

    Why do you want to read a book about a Birmingham player?
     
  6. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Disaster of an own goal!

    :eek:
     
  7. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    And Daniel James (one of several players to torment us at Elland Road)? Just equalised.
     
  8. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    An awesome Welsh performance
     
  9. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    Sweeeeeeet
     
  10. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    Decent game - we really should have won. James is so frustrating to watch - if his end product improved by 10% he would be a world beater. Sorba looks like he could become a handful
     
  11. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    Yep, we should have won. Robert Page's tactics were spot on. Using Moore and James up front and introducing Harry Wilson to give us that pass to James for the equaliser.

    They said Sorba Thomas was playing for Borham Wood last season, he looked like he has some skills.
     
  12. reg_varney

    reg_varney Squad Player

    https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-any-fans-heart-skip-a-beat-world-cup-playoff

    Wales v the world: emotional Ukraine final could make any fan’s heart skip a beat
    Elis James
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    Wales can finally eclipse qualifying for the 1958 World Cup in a playoff against a Ukraine side every neutral will back on Sunday

    [​IMG]
    ‘Wales might have reached the semi-finals of Euro 2016, but 1958 hangs over us like Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of …) hangs over Lou Bega.’ Illustration: Nathan Daniels/The Guardian

    sealed a World Cup playoff final against Wales, Arrigo Sacchi’s observation that “football is the most important of the least important things in life” felt especially pertinent. The players raised their fists in relief at a job half done, and the Ukrainian fans embraced, their minds inevitably turning to Cardiff. On Sunday they go again and it is now Rob Page’s job to make Wales the most unpopular team on Earth.

    Oleksandr Zinchenko wept during the pre-match press conference on Wednesday, as he described what reaching the World Cup would mean to the people of his wartorn homeland, and how he hoped to bring joy to a country that is undergoing unimaginable suffering. As my admiration for this exceptional young man grew, I thought of all the people I have met who dismiss football as only being 22 people kicking a ball around. This fixture might have felt slightly abstract for a few months (“Wales will face Scotland or Ukraine”) but Sunday is now an event to make any fan’s heart skip a beat. It’s Ukraine at home. World Cup qualification. Winner takes all.



    [​IMG]
    Taras Stepanenko looks to deliver on his great expectations for Ukraine
    Read more

    To put the match into a sporting context, Wales haven’t been to a World Cup since the days of topical comedians making jokes about the Suez Crisis. Wales might have reached the semi-finals of Euro 2016, but 1958 hangs over us like Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of …) hangs over Lou Bega. The last time we competed on football’s biggest stage was prior to the invention of Coffee Mate. Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and the rest of our Golden Generation could make history by qualifying for our first World Cup since the farthing was legal tender. It is a prospect that has captivated Welsh supporters for decades.

    Even most casual Welsh fans could give you the highlights of our exploits at Sweden ’58. Wales reached the quarter-finals, knocked out by a solitary goal from a 17-year-old Pelé, his first in a World Cup and a goal he would go on to describe as “the most important goal he ever scored” (and this was in an interview for Fifa, he wasn’t doing a tricky after-dinner in Tregaron and trying to get some drunk farmers onside). In classic Welsh tradition, our talisman John Charles and one of the world’s best players at the time was unavailable following injury in the previous game against Hungary, and as Tottenham greats Cliff Jones and Terry Medwin floated in unanswered cross after unanswered cross to the Brazilian box, Charles muttered to Jimmy Murphy, the Welsh manager: “I would have scored that.” Brazil went on to hammer France and Sweden in the semi-final and final respectively, and Wales’s relationship with the World Cup would be conducted at arm’s length for the next 64 years.

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    The Welsh team that beat Israel 2-0 in the second leg of their World Cup eliminator to qualify for the finals in 1958. Photograph: PA/Archive

    Wales will prepare for the showdown with Ukraine in vastly different circumstances to the ones faced by Charles and his teammates, however. The current squad did some warm weather training in Portugal prior to Wednesday’s Nations League defeat by Poland, and will be performing in front of an expectant capacity crowd at the Cardiff City Stadium. The boys of ’58 expected to train at Finchley FC before travelling to Sweden from London, but no one told the groundsman and they arrived in north London to find the pitch was being reseeded.

    With no time to find alternative facilities, Wales trained on Hyde Park using coats as goalposts, and Murphy spent these sessions keeping an eye out for overzealous park wardens as ball games were banned. Eventually, a bunch of professional footballers having a kickabout caught people’s attention, and Murphy persuaded a member of Royal Parks staff to turn a blind eye, explaining that his players were about to represent Wales at a World Cup. Not everyone was bothered by these amateurish preparations, though. “We’d trained in worse places” said Medwin. “At least it was flat.”

    The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email.

    Wales have come a long way since the 1950s. The Football Association of Wales are in the almost unique position of being a governing body that’s wildly popular with the fans, an institution staffed by people who earned their stripes as supporters. Cardiff’s ground has also come to feel like home for supporters and players alike, the FAW resisting the temptation to move this match to the disliked Principality Stadium, a ground that’s twice the size but somehow generates less than half the atmosphere.


    [​IMG]
    ‘A game of survival’: Ukraine prepare for final World Cup push in Wales
    Read more

    Bale fired Wales into this final with two exquisite goals against Austria in March, and Ramsey (who secured qualification for the last Euros with two goals against Hungary in 2019, on what was his first appearance of that campaign) will hope to prove yet again that a lack of game-time for his club doesn’t stop him from putting in match-winning performances for his country. What Welsh supporters are asking from Bale or Ramsey is actually quite simple. One more career-defining display in a Welsh shirt. Give us the moment that will be repeated on Welsh television every day until the sun eventually swallows the Earth.

    What sets this side apart from the Welsh teams that came agonisingly close to qualifying in the past, is that they’ve been playing in games of enormous importance for years. A few of the class of 2016 remain. This current squad has tournament experience from Euro 2020, and plenty tasted World Cup qualification defeat at the hands of the Republic of Ireland in 2017. After qualification for Euro 2016, my friend Mark, a Wales away veteran who has stuck with the team through more bad times than good, told me deliriously that “1958 is no longer my pin number”. If Wales reach the 2022 World Cup, we might upset every neutral on the planet, but Welsh football fans will become a fraudster’s dream.
     
    Klein Lust, Jumbolina and CYHSYF like this.
  13. reg_varney

    reg_varney Squad Player

    Well, it's live on ITV with Channel 3 trying to re-connect their audience with current Welsh footy. At times, annoyingly simplistic and that's just the presenters.
     
  14. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Seems to be basically the Sky coverage on ITV?
     
  15. reg_varney

    reg_varney Squad Player

    Soon be time for teams and anthems. This is nerve-shredding so God knows what it will be like during the game.

    Come on Wales.

    Cymru am byth!

    Wish us luck, we might need it.
     
  16. reg_varney

    reg_varney Squad Player

    H-T 1-0

    Wales squeak ahead with a Gareth Bale deflected free-kick which will go down as an o.g.

    Both teams neat and tidy with Ukraine picking up on Welsh midfield mis-passes, must minimise those.

    Wales forcing the issues down both flanks but not enough crosses or shots are getting into the box.
     
  17. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Probably a bit fortunate at times and keeper was excellent but congratulations to Wales .
     
    reg_varney likes this.
  18. Davy Crockett

    Davy Crockett Reservist

    Well done Wales !!
     
    reg_varney and wfc4ever like this.
  19. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    Great achievement by Wales and especially Robert Page - one of our own.
     
  20. reg_varney

    reg_varney Squad Player

    FT 1-0

    Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!

    Ben Davies and Wayhe Hennessey get the blocks and saves in at the right moments. Wales should have put the game to bed with 2 good chances and also hit the post but they prevailed in the end.
     
  21. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    First ex WFC player to manage a team at the World Cup?
     
  22. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Was it Rob Edwards on commentary?
     
  23. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Dave Edwards - he might have been at Wolves with Rob though .
     
  24. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Yep, they were together at Wolves very briefly and they're both originally from Shropshire (not that I know what Rob Edwards sounds like--thank you Watford FC!)
     
  25. Davy Crockett

    Davy Crockett Reservist

    Got "woked" at Peterborough before it was trendy .
     
  26. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    I imagine so. And relatively inexperienced in management too. He certainly has stepped up!

    I wonder how Ryan Giggs is feeling tonight...
     
    wfc4ever likes this.
  27. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    Pervy?
     
    sydney_horn likes this.
  28. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    Wow, so so lucky to win against 'yr Wcrên' yesterday.

    Amazing that we've finally qualified. Awesome how so many of my Welsh friends on social media seem to be, out of knowhere, football fans, lol

    Great feeling regardless. Robby P has done an amazing job in guiding his team to....probably group knockout to England, and/or Iran and USA.

    #pride
     
  29. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    Dym ar ein ffordd i Qatar. Cymru am byth!

    Mind you, won't actually watch Wales vs England as I rarely do. Too many contrasting emotions having lived in England since I was 6.
     
  30. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    Not bad Welsh Since63

    Tricky for you indeed regarding watching ENG V WAL...It should be an easy win for England, but, Wales are capable of turning up. Should be an emotional and gritty match probs.
     
  31. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Last game in the group stage too, so could well be a dead rubber for one or both sides.
     
  32. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    Very true UEA, bit of a shame really, would've been an awesome opening group match....but, it could be a massive decider in some way, as long as we don't repeat what Germany and Austria did in 1982 (or was it 86?) to stop Algeria rightfully qualifying.
     
  33. reg_varney

    reg_varney Squad Player

  34. Klein Lust

    Klein Lust Uber Keine

    It was 82

     
  35. reg_varney

    reg_varney Squad Player

    Giggs has never been a popular choice for the Welsh job based on his super-injunction shenanigans and the fact as a player he regularly withdrew from Welsh international squads though "injury" which would then miraculously clear up in time to play for Man Ure the following weekend.
     

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