As Cameron Carter-Vickers and his international teammates – including goalscorer Christian Pulisic who put them through to the next round – celebrated qualifying for the Last-16 of the World Cup in Qatar, it was at the expense of one of the home nations in Wales.
The Welsh had high hopes that they could cause an upset after beating Ukraine on their way to World Cup qualification earlier this year but it wasn’t to be as disappointing results against both England and Iran saw them fall well short with just 1 point from a possible 9 in the group phase of the competition.
Wales reached the Semi-final of the Euros back in 2016, with Gareth Bale in his pomp and firing along with a hungry and close-knit group of players. They managed to take some hefty scalps during that time and had the whole world taking about their displays. It was quite remarkable considering the size of the country.
You could visibly see that time has taken its toll on Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen; all of whom were instrumental during Wales’ glory run to the Euro 2016 knockouts six years ago. Bale was hooked at half-time tonight and you knew then that it was perhaps an indication that the golden age of Bale was up for both him and Wales.
John Hartson was less than impressed for the way the campaign finished in particular, branding the England performance as “toothless” on social media platform Twitter. There’s no denying it was a far cry from their exploits of years gone by but time waits for no man and it showed tonight unfortunately for Rob Page and his team.
Paul Gillespie
