If Wales succeed in reaching the World Cup, there will be few regrets about ugly wins against the side sandwiched by Mauritania and Namibia in FIFA’s rankings.
And yet there will also be an imperative to improve on a performance that briefly threatened to sap some of the early mood around Craig Bellamy’s work in the post.
For this was a bit of a trudge, right up until Rabbi Matondo scored in stoppage time and finally put a little daylight between Wales and Kazakhstan. The previous 90 minutes had been spent in some state of frustration, first after Dan James’s early strike was levelled by an Askhat Tagybergen penalty, and then when they struggled to build on Ben Davies’s header for 2-1.
Given the Welsh squad remain irritated about how they flopped in Qatar in 2022, and have spoken openly about setting it right in North America next year, there was considerable relief that Matondo removed any sense of jeopardy at the end.
‘It’s a positive result – I knew it would be a difficult game,’ said Bellamy. ‘I didn’t feel we were living on the edge but I felt it was going to be a tough game before it and I still felt it was a tough game.’
All of that might be true, but it was nonetheless jolting how Wales, in the first 45 minutes especially, struggled to break down a stubborn, attack-averse side stationed at 110 in that FIFA list. Bellamy preferred to flag that his team’s ‘patience’ won the day, though it is fair to wonder how much of it should have been necessary against one that arrived here on the back of seven defeats in eight.
Wales claimed a 3-1 win over Kazakhstan in their opening 2026 World Cup qualifier
Wales lacked creativity, but still took an early lead through Dan James
Askhat Tagybergen’s penalty put Kazakhstan on level terms after 32 minutes
There is a reasonable amount of quality in Bellamy’s team, and certainly no shortage of pace in Brennan Johnson and Dan James, but there was also a curious lack of inventiveness when presented with the challenge of a parked bus. With 73 per cent of possession across the match, it will perhaps trouble Bellamy that they weren’t wiser in using it.
Away in Macedonia on Tuesday, a little more nous will be needed, and we can multiply that for Wales’s June engagement with Group J’s standout side, Belgium. For now, Bellamy remains unbeaten through seven games and has already succeeded in raising expectations.
‘Winning is a habit but unfortunately so is losing,’ he said. ‘We’re on a decent run at this present moment but we have another tough game on Tuesday, I’m completely aware of that.’
The theoretical disparity of this match was written out on the team sheets – two of the Kazakh XI play their club football in Russia and the rest were drawn from their domestic top flight. Even in the absence of world-class names in the post-Bale era, Belamy had four men from the Premier League, one from Nantes and a trio from the Leeds United side at the top of the Championship.
For a time, the game seemed to keep with expectations.
James’s opener came from a corner routine that was botched but not cleared, allowing Ben Davies and Liam Cullen to double up and sack Askhat Tagybergen as he attempted to play his way out of the area. The loose ball was nudged to James and he finished with the help of a significant deflection off Alexandr Marochkin.
From there, chances fell to Joe Rodon and Johnson, a reasonable penalty appeal from James was ignored, and an under hit pass from David Brookes killed the opportunity to send Sorba Thomas into a one-on-one. Out of those blips came the sucker punch.
It fell on the half hour, when Connor Roberts turned his back on a cross by Islam Chesnokov and the delivery struck his left arm. Bellamy felt it was ‘very harsh’ but by the latest definitions of these laws, a penalty was fair.
Karl Darlow got a foot to Tagybergen’s kick up the middle but the ball trickled over the line.
Ben Davies’ close-range header put Wales ahead once again shortly after the break
Substitute Rabbi Matondo scored Wales’s third in stoppage time on Saturday night
Craig Bellamy remains unbeaten through seven games as head coach of the Dragons
Bellamy was described as ‘Mr Calm’ by Davies for his half-time reaction and the response was a rapid goal by the Tottenham defender after the restart. He was gifted the header at a set-piece after the Kazakhstan goalkeeper, Alexandr Zarautskiy, flapped at Thomas’s in-swinging corner and missed. Matondo, on for James, tapped the third.
Davies said: ‘We have all been in games like that where you can go in as favourites and there are expectations to walk all over these teams, but it is never the case.
‘They are a proud nation trying to win like us and they are fighting for everything. They made it tough.’
