Match report:
To tie up the loose ends, then. Here are tonight’s results in Group B:
Andorra 1-4 Belgium
Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 Wales
Israel 1-2 Cyprus
It means Belgium and Wales have qualified, while Bosnia-Herzegovina leap above Israel in the race for third spot, and a place in the play-offs. Bosnia-Herzegovina will be favourites, as they’ve got a point in the bag, and they only have to travel to Cyprus, while Israel go to Belgium. But never mind all that: the big news is the end of a wait that’s stretched to nearly 60 years. Wales make it to the finals of a major tournament once again. Europe watch out: it took Pele to knock them out last time.
A crazy atmosphere in Zenica, as the first manager to guide Wales to a major finals since the legendary Jimmy Murphy in 1958 is thrown into the air by his jubilant squad. Wales might have lost their way in the second half tonight, Bosnia-Herzegovina the deserved winners of the match, but Chris Coleman’s side have earned their qualification over the piece. It’s been a brilliant campaign. “The best loss of my life,” smiles Gareth Bale. “It doesn’t stop here.” Next stop, then, France. Well, technically, it’s a party back home against Andorra in a couple of days, but you know what I mean.
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Chris Coleman talks to Sky, as behind him, his entire squad slide hysterically across the wet turf on their nipples! “I thought we did enough to get something out of the game. I was gutted at the end. I didn’t know the other result. But now we do! I can’t explain to you how it feels. I’m disappointed because we lost ... but the campaign’s been an absolute dream!”
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FULL TIME: Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 Wales ... and WALES HAVE QUALIFIED FOR EURO 2016!!!
Wales have lost. But who will care? Because Israel have been beaten 2-1 by Cyprus. Chris Coleman trudges across the turf, feeling the misery of defeat, but suddenly bursts into a sprint as he hears the news from Jerusalem! It’s party time in Zenica ... and the hosts are pretty happy too, as their play-off chances are very much alive!
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90 min +3: Bale flings a throw into the mixer from the left. Ramsey tries to dance through a thicket of legs. He can’t make it through.
90 min +2: The full-time whistle has gone in ... Andorra. Belgium have won 4-1.
90 min +1: There will be three added minutes. One elapses without incident.
GOAL! Bosnia-Herzegovina 2-0 Wales (Ibisevic 90)
The ball’s sent in from the right. Ibisevic, levels with the right-hand post, shoots but shanks it left. Duric gathers at the left=hand post, and fires a low ball across the front of the Welsh goal. Ibisevic rushes in to bundle over the line. It’s up to Cyprus now for Wales! Fortunately for them, they’re 2-1 up.
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89 min: Pjanic shoots from distance. The ball balloons off Richards’ leg and out for a corner. From which ...
88 min: Bale shoots from the edge of the box but the ball is deflected wide right for a corner. The set piece is lumped into the area. Williams rises on the penalty spot, and sends a header flashing straight at Begovic. The keeper, managing the clock in the way professionals do, drops to the floor awhile.
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86 min: Another Wales long ball. Church chests it down on the edge of the area. Edwards looks for the top right but hooks it well wide.
85 min: Sunjic is booked for timewasting. Meanwhile Wales make a double-switch, hooking Allen and Robson-Kanu and sending on Church and Edwards.
84 min: Ramsey is booked for a flick on Salihovic.
82 min: ... Cyprus have reclaimed the lead in Jerusalem! They’re 2-1 up, and once again Israel require two goals to deny Wales their dream! It’s good news for Bosnia-Herzegovina too, as if things end as they are, they’re ahead of Israel in the battle for the play-offs!
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81 min: A long ball down the middle. Vokes cushions a header to the left, where Bale has space to control and line up a shot. He looks to thread one into the bottom-right corner. It’s just wide right of goal. But then there’s a MASSIVE cheer. Because ...
79 min: Lulic slips a ball across the face of the Welsh area from the left. Salihovic has time and space to shoot, and Wales can be thankful that he shanks an awful first-time effort miles wide right.
78 min: Bale, in space down the left, loops a long one for Ramsey on the right-hand edge of the D. Ramsey meets it first time and sends a screeching dipping shot over the bar. That wasn’t so far away.
77 min: OK, this is getting slightly tight now. Israel have just equalised against Cyprus, Nir Bitton pelting one in from long range. Wales are still going through tonight, because Israel need to win to keep their hopes of automatic qualification alive. But dearie me this is nerve-wracking now.
76 min: Corner for Wales down the left. Ramsey loops one in, and it’s easy catching practise for Begovic.
75 min: An aggressive substitution by Chris Coleman, who clearly doesn’t want to rely on Cyprus. He takes off Ledley and throws on Vokes.
73 min: That came out of nothing. Wales look a little stunned, as they’d looked in control of the situation, with the home side flailing around in desperation. But it’s all changed now. They need a goal to make sure of their own destiny. However no need to panic quite yet: as things stand, with Israel losing at home, Wales are still going through.
GOAL! Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 Wales (Duric 71)
And out of nothing, a goal for the hosts! A fairly aimless Mujdza free kick from deep on the right, bounding into the Wales area. The ball should be hacked clear, but Wales allow it to rear into the sky. Duric, rising high, 12 yards out and level with the left-hand post, stretches his neck and guides a looping header over Hennessey and into the top-right corner!
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70 min: This is better from Mujdza, who again finds himself with the ball down the right. He drops a shoulder to make space, and loops a testing inswinger into the Welsh box. Hennessey, who has had little to do, comes off his line to claim brilliantly.
68 min: Mujdza, having prodded the ball far too far upfield, runs into the back of Taylor in the hope of winning a cheap free kick. It’s a pitiful effort. Even the home support can’t be bothered to harangue the referee. Bosnia-Herzegovina are out of ideas on this evidence.
67 min: Ramsey and Bale attempt a long-distance one-two down the left, but it doesn’t come off. No matter, the hosts are struggling to string more than two passes together at a time right now. The home fans are full of frustration, whistles and boos raining down, mingled with a few trenchant demands for Edin Dzeko.
64 min: Belgium are now 4-1 up in Andorra.
63 min: A lot of scrappy nonsense in the midfield right now. Wales are perfectly happy with this state of affairs, of course.
61 min: Bosnia-Herzegovina make their second change, and Dzeko stays on the bench. Duric comes on, taking Visca’s place.
59 min: Great news for Wales in Jerusalem, where Cyprus have taken the lead against Israel! Meanwhile Belgium have restored their two-goal lead against Andorra with a penalty kick of their own. Eden Hazard doing the work there.
58 min: Richards skedaddles infield from the right, a wonderfully purposeful run that eats up half of the pitch. He slips the ball inside for Bale, who shuttles it across to the left for Taylor. Taylor’s cross is poor, given the time he’s got, but Bale still manages to get a weak head on the ball. Begovic gathers.
56 min: Bale, buzzing around the midfield, is this close to forcing a pass down the inside-right channel to release Ramsey on goal. Sunjic steps in to intercept just in time. But Wales quickly come again, and Bale’s sent scampering down the left wing. He’s always got a yard on Hadzic, but slices a wild shot wide left as he steps into the area.
53 min: Dismal play all round here. Allen, looking to spring Robson-Kanu free down the right, misplaces his pass by miles, allowing Zukanovic to break into acres of space down the Boznia-Herzegovina left. Fortunately for the Wales midfielder, Zukanovic converts for three rugby points from a position 30 yards out on the wing. Dear oh dear (x2).
51 min: Andorra have pulled a goal back against Belgium from the penalty spot. The Belgians are still 2-1 up, mind, and topping the group as things stand.
49 min: Pjanic has been the most creative player on show so far tonight. He dribbles into the box down the right and there’s men in the middle. Wales are all over the shop. But Williams and Davies both slide in at the same time to form a red wall that Pjanic can’t flick a cross over. He settles for a corner, from which nothing comes. Great desperate defence by Williams and Davies there, because Wales weren’t organised there at all.
48 min: Bale looks to burst into the box down the left, but Sunjic slides in with a wonderful block tackle, and doesn’t even concede a corner, the ball coming off the Real Madrid star. Bale argues the toss, but you can sense he doesn’t really believe his own argument. It’s still 0-0 in Jerusalem, incidentally.
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47 min: The hosts start the half on the front foot. Pjanic pitching-wedges a lovely ball down the middle of the park at high speed, hoping to release Ibisevic, on the edge of the D, into the area. But the striker is snoozing, and he’s caught offside as Williams steps up.
The second half is underway!
Wales get the ball rolling again. They’ve yet to concede a second-half goal in this qualification campaign. Another 45 minutes, and they’ve made it to France. The hosts make one change, swapping Spahic for Cocalic.
Intermission:
HALF-TIME: Bosnia-Herzegovina 0-0 Wales
And that’s the very last action of the half. Wales doing what they have to do very nicely so far. As things stand, Belgium will win the group, but Wales will have the point they’ve been dreaming of. They’re 45 minutes away from ending that 57-year wait.
45 min: Ramsey dances down the right wing and into the area, having been released by a lovely ball turned round the corner by Robson-Kanu. He twists and turns on the right-hand corner of the six-yard box, and should get a shot away really, but you can take the boy out of Arsenal, etc., and he tries to walk it into the net. That allows Zukanovic to step across him and guide the ball into the hands of Begovic, though Taylor did his best to slide in and bundle the ball over the line. So close to a precious goal for Wales. Great footwork from Ramsey, but he really should have pulled the trigger. “That free kick attempt by Bale was the most foolish thing I’ve seen today,” begins J.R. in Illinois, “and that’s saying something because every time I have checked any other TV channel today all they have been showing is Donald Trump.”
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43 min: Ramsey batters the free kick into the box, figuring a fluke is his best chance of creating something for Wales in a packed area. But it isn’t. Belgium are now 2-0 up in Andorra.
42 min: Robson-Kanu slides a ball down the left for Bale, who turns on the burners. He draws a desperate challenge from Spahic, because he was threatening to break clear into the area. As Bale slides along the wet grass on his nipples, the referee gets out the yellow card. A free kick in a dangerous position, just to the left of the Bosnia-Herzegovina box.
40 min: Quite a few whistles from the home support now, as Taylor faffs around at a throw. World-class clock management. And fair enough. When you’ve been waiting nearly 60 years to get to a finals, anything goes.
38 min: Lulic makes good down the left and he’s got men in the middle, but an awfully overhit lump out of play on the right suggests the home side are getting a little frustrated here. Wales aren’t exactly controlling the game as such, but they’re severely limiting Bosnia-Herzegovina in attack.
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36 min: Allen comes through the back of Salihovic in the midfield, down the left. He’s lucky the referee is in a good mood, because that could have been a booking too. Bosnia-Herzegovina load the box, but Pjanic’s set piece is an egregious nonsense.
34 min: Ramsey is bowled over 40 yards from goal. Bale opts to go for goal with the free kick. Even £85m players need a clip round the lug sometimes, and told to behave. Begovic gathers the dribbling ball with a yawn.
32 min: It’s tipping down in Zenica. Lulic sashays in from the left and very nearly slips a ball inside for Ibisevic. There’s a bit of pinball off Williams and Gunter, and anything could happen. Thankfully for Wales, it breaks to Hennessey rather than the in-rushing striker.
30 min: Bale drops deep with a view to quarterbacking for a while. In the centre circle, he Gerrards an optimistic looping pass down the left for Taylor, who busts a lung in an attempt to meet the dropping ball on the edge of the box, but in truth had no chance.
27 min: Ledley slides a beautiful pass down the inside-left channel for Bale, who has a yard on Mujdza as he strides into the box. His cross inside is too fierce and too far forward for Robson-Kanu in the middle. For a player of Bale’s quality, that was a poor delivery. Robson-Kanu was on the penalty spot, in a little space, ready to meet that. Still, there are signs that Wales are emerging as an attacking force now.
25 min: A rare empty strip of turf opens up in front of Bale down the left. He romps into it, and reaching the byline hoicks a looper to the other side of the area, where Ramsey’s rushing in. Ramsey can’t connect. Wales haven’t quite clicked in attack yet.
24 min: Sunjic heads back in the general direction of Begovic. Robson-Kanu, realising the header is weak, tears off down the right. Begovic, racing out of his box, only just gets there in time to hoof clear. Robson-Kanu was very nearly in there. That was bright play. On the other hand, it was so sloppy from Sunjic.
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22 min: The hosts swing balls into the Welsh box from one flank and then the other. Williams stands staunch. But otherwise Wales are beginning to look slightly ragged. A case of soaking up a little pressure right now, much as 13-man Australia did during the second half of the rugby earlier this afternoon. Sorry, it was the first example that sprung to mind.
19 min: Some lovely 1980s stylings here. Begovic hoofs high and long. Williams ushers the ball out for a goal kick. He’s bundled over by an excitable Salihovic. For a second, with Gunter across to get involved, it all looks like kicking off. But everyone calms down in double-quick time. Meanwhile Belgium have gone a goal up in Andorra, much as expected. As things stand, they’re top of the table now.
17 min: A bit of space for Visca down the right, having been released by a clever dink by Pjanic. The offside flag goes up, much to Welsh relief, because they’d been turned there. But it’s the correct decision. The home side are on top right now, certainly in terms of territory and possession.
15 min: Salihovic is fairly fortunate to escape a booking after coming straight through the back of Allen. Not too much force in the challenge, which was in his favour. There’s plenty of force in the way he’s effin’ and jeffin’ at the free kick being awarded, though, which shows admirable chutzpah. And he’s really testing the ref’s patience. But he gets away with that too.
13 min: Ramsey looks to make off down the left but is dragged back cynically by Hadzic. Free kick, and a chance for Wales to commit men forward. The box is loaded. Ramsey, 40 yards from goal, spots the Chelsea keeper Begovic miles off his line, and decides to go for the top-right corner. It’d have been a saucy spectacular, and it damn well nearly flies in. A few inches wide of the post. Maybe a little high too. But a wonderful effort from there. Ramsey smiles ruefully, knowing full well how close he’d come to something rather special.
11 min: Bosnia-Herzegovina have been on the front foot, but they’re happy to show patience too. They stroke it around the back awhile in the casual style. Wales are quite happy for them to do this.
9 min: A loose clearance by Davies, who slips on his arse in the slapstick fashion. Pjanic latches onto the loose ball and threads one down the inside-right channel. Lulic strides into the area and, leaning back, whistles a low diagonal shot inches wide of the left-hand post. Not sure Hennessey was getting to that had it been on target.
7 min: A bit of space for the full-back Mujdza down the right. His team-mates have kept up with play, the Welsh box loaded. But the cross is woefully overcooked and bounces harmlessly out of play well to the left of the Wales goal. Both teams are up for this, as we always knew they would be.
5 min: Robson-Kanu bursts down the right and feeds the ball inside for Ramsey, who has space to barge into the box but hesitates slightly. He could have got a shot away if he’d taken a stride into the area. Instead he hooks over for Taylor, who sticks a leg out in the hope of connecting with a wonder volley. Not quite; it slices off to the left, away from danger.
3 min: A nice, lively end-to-end start to this match. Pjanic makes good down the inside-right channel but can’t quite find anyone in the middle. Then Wales go up the other end, Bale romping down the left but finding himself unable to turn the ball inside for Robson-Kanu. “Yep, Super Victor is scary,” agrees Habib. “First thing that came into my mind was this ...”
And we're off!
The hosts get the ball rolling. Bosnia-Herzegovina have only lost two of 14 fixtures here. This will be quite a test for Chris Coleman’s side. “Super Victor may be even more terrifying than Bely Mishka (or Polar Bear) from the Sochi Winter Olympics,” suggests Niall McVeigh of this parish, who clearly doesn’t want me to get a wink of sleep ever again.
The teams are out! What a wonderful atmosphere at the Stadion Bilino polje in Zenica! Joyous bedlam amongst the travelling support of 600. The rest of the 13,000 capacity giving it plenty as well. Bosnia-Herzegovina are bedecked in blue, Wales in dragon red. We’ll be off in a minute or two. Just time for a national anthem or two ...
That’ll just be me, then. Sorry to have brought it up.
No? Nobody?
By the way, this Euro 2016 mascot, Super Victor. Anybody else been having nightmares about him?
While we wait nervously for kick-off, and in lieu of European Championship finals stories involving Welsh players, here’s the tale of a Welsh official caught four-square in the thick of it at Euro 76. Rob Smyth with the details from a classic Joy of Six on European Championship controversies and debacles.
The romantic story of Holland’s failure to win the World Cup in 1974 and 1978 is one of the first things they teach on the Football History curriculum in these parts. Yet nobody really talks about why they failed to win the tournament in between, Euro 76. Unlike in 1978, their team included Johan Cruyff and Wim van Hanegem, yet they were beaten 3-1 by the eventual winners Czechoslovakia in a nasty semi-final in Zagreb, a match played in fierce wind and rain on a pitch that the Times described as “a paddyfield”. If the match is barely remembered over here, then it will never be forgotten in Holland. In 2008, it was the subject of a half-hour documentary.
The focus of the documentary was one incident in extra-time. Both sides were down to 10 men by that stage, with Johan Neeskens sent off for a savage hack at Zdenek Nehoda. (Some people associate the purity of the Dutch football with pacifism, but they were a team who had velvet boots with a steel toecap. Exhibit A: this tackle, and the yelp, against Italy at the 1978 World Cup.)
With the score at 1-1, there were six minutes of extra-time remaining when Johan Cruyff was fouled badly by Antonin Panenka. The Welsh referee Clive Thomas gave nothing and the Czechoslovakians broke to take the lead a few seconds later. For a Dutch team who had been moaning at Thomas all game, this was the final straw. They were already in a foul mood before the game because of the usual infighting, and Cruyff had earlier been booked for again trying to become football’s first player-referee. “Cruyff sadly is now inclined to put himself above the game,” said Geoffrey Green in The Times. “My friend Johan,” said Clive Thomas as he watched the video 32 years later, “trying to tell me what the laws of the game are.”
Van Hanegem was booked for dissent on the way back to the halfway line after the goal and sent off before the game had kicked off again. He already distrusted Thomas because of an incident in a match between Feyenoord and Benfica four years earlier, when he says he called Thomas a “thief”. Thomas said he didn’t hear this, and that had he done so he’d have “tried to get him a 10-game ban, in fact maybe for life. No one says that to me.”
Precisely what Van Hanegem said and did when he met Thomas again at Euro 76 is not entirely clear, because his and Thomas’s versions of the story are different. This is not just a controversy; it’s an unsolved mystery. Thomas says, both in his autobiography By The Book and David Winner’s Brilliant Orange, that he told Van Hanegem he would send him off for dissent if he stepped over the halfway line before the kick-off was taken. When Van Hanegem did that, he was off.
Van Hanegem’s version is that Thomas ordered him to take the kick-off. “I said ‘Why? I’m a midfield player. Ruud Geels is the striker – he should take it,’” says Van Hanegem in Brilliant Orange. “Thomas said: ‘Come over here.’ Normally the referee comes to the player, so I stayed where I was. He said again: ‘Come here.’ I stayed where I was. Then he sent me off.”
The video (after 18 minutes of this link) apparently supports Van Hanegem’s version. There are two other players waiting to take the kick-off, and Thomas seems to point for van Hanegem to come towards him. When he doesn’t, Thomas pulls out the red card. And Thomas’s accounts aren’t entirely consistent. In Brilliant Orange (released in 2000), he says, “I’ve looked at that tape and I know I was right.” In the Dutch TV documentary, eight years later, he says it is the first time he has seen the incident since it happened.
This is not to say Thomas was wrong to produce a red card, because Van Hanegem was behaving like a Total Slapped Arse. Thomas was insistent that players should come to him – “I am not prepared to run around the field to seek out a recalcitrant footballer” – whereas Holland thought the referee should come to them. There had been a similar incident earlier in the game, when, after a long stand-off, Cruyff eventually relented and walked towards Thomas to receive his yellow card. What Van Hanegem failed to realise is that Holland were up against the only referee in the world who was even more stubborn and self-righteous than they were. Thomas was never, ever, going to back down. “At the time,” says Van Hanegem, “I wanted to kill him.”
At first Van Hanegem refused to leave the field, and Thomas was in the process of walking off and abandoning the game when Van Hanegem finally shuffled off. With Holland down to nine men, Czechoslovakia scored a third to go through to the final.
In that Dutch TV documentary, Thomas accepts it was a foul on Cruyff. “I apologise,” he says. “It was the wrong decision.” This does not vindicate Holland’s behaviour; these mistakes happen all the time, and Holland would not have played at the 1974 World Cup without a serious refereeing error (see here). Nobody covered themselves in much glory, but Thomas surely had more right on his side.
The Dutch players are content to forgive now, with one exception. “He needn’t take 32 years to do that [acknowledge his mistake],” says van Hanegem. “That strikes me as a little long. [Narrator: it was the first time in 32 years he’d seen the images.] I can’t imagine that, don’t try to convince me of that. He’s just incredibly vain, when you see that little man walk, so pedantic, an annoying little fella, always saying, ‘Come here’. You don’t think he has [those images]? You don’t think he has that. That he sends Neeskens off? That he calls Cruyff over to give him a yellow card? He had it enlarged. He was the first to have one of those [holds hands far apart] plasma screens, believe me, to watch that. That’s the sort of little man he is.”
... and the full team sheets
Bosnia-Herzegovina: Begovic, Mujdza, Spahic, Sunjic, Zukanovic, Visca, Pjanic, Hadzic, Salihovic, Lulic, Ibisevic.
Subs: Sehic, Grahovac, Bicakcic, Cocalic, Stojan Vranjes, Ognjen Vranjes, Medunjanin, Dzeko, Djuric, Hodzic, Hajrovic, Buric.
Wales: Hennessey, Gunter, Ashley Williams, Taylor, Ramsey, Davies, Allen, Richards, Ledley, Bale, Robson-Kanu.
Subs: Fon Williams, King, Jonathan Williams, Church, Vokes, Edwards, Chester, Collins, Vaughan, Lawrence, Henley, Ward.
Referee: Alberto Undiano Mallenco (Spain)
The team news ...
Wales make two changes to the team which shared a grand total of zero goals with Israel last month: Andy King and Dave Edwards make way for the more glamorous Joe Allen and Joe Ledley. But the big news regards Gareth Bale, who starts his first game since suffering calf-knack while playing for Real Madrid on September 16.
Bosnia-Herzegovina meanwhile must make do without erstwhile Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko, now of Roma. Their record goalscorer, who has been a martyr to his knees, is only considered fit enough to take a place on the bench. All in all, the hosts make three changes from the side which won 3-0 in Andorra last month: Toni Sunjic, Sejad Salihovic and Anel Hadzic all coming in.
Wales stand on the verge of their first major finals since the 1958 World Cup. They could make it to Euro 2016 tonight - permutations anon - and everyone across the continent, no matter where they hail from, with the probable exception of Belgians and Israelis, will be wishing them well. Because the last time Wales went to a major finals, they did this:
Wheech! In it goes!
Of course, they did make the quarter finals of the 1976 European Championships, a team featuring Terry Yorath, John Toshack and Leighton James losing to a strong Yugoslavia. But that was in the days of a four-team finals. So the wait went on.
But now we’re here. It’s so close. Almost too close to bear. A point tonight will do it, though that in itself is a big call against a Bosnia-Herzegovina side still in with a shout of overhauling Israel to make the play-offs. However, Wales can lose tonight and they’ll still be through if Israel fail to beat Cyprus or Belgium somehow balls up against Andorra. And even if that doesn’t work out, their final match is at home to Andorra, who have lost all eight of their games to date, scoring three goals while letting in 30. And even then, they can somehow lose that one as well, and they’ll still be through unless Israel manage to beat both Cyprus and Belgium.
It’s so close. They’re practically already th... no, nobody’s to say it. Jinx nothing. But we can all think it. A point tonight, though, and there can be no question, nothing to worry about. A fit Gareth Bale will give Wales a boost as they aim to end their 58 years of hurt. It’s on!
Kick off: 7.45pm in Cymru, 8.45pm at the Stadion Bilino polje in Zenica.
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