Wales were deservedly beaten 1-0 by Denmark at Cardiff City Stadium on Sunday, Rasmus Hojlund’s second-half penalty settling the Nations League fixture. Craig Bellamy’s side rarely looked like scoring, and the defeat came after Thursday’s win over Norway.
The Wales head coach was in no doubt about where part of the blame lay. Bellamy claimed the new four-match international window had counted against his team, arguing it plays into the hands of the bigger nations and puts what he called a real stress on countries like Wales.
“Physically, I completely agree with the ones who don’t like [the new window]. It makes no sense,” he said. “Four games at this type of level… for the other nations, we know who they are because I was in the room when they all voted for it. I was one of the ones who wasn’t, because we know it’s a complete disadvantage to us.”
Under the traditional calendar, international sides played six games across three windows in September, October and November, each featuring two fixtures. This year, for the first time, the September and October breaks were merged, leaving Wales to play four games inside 10 days. The Denmark loss was their third defeat in that run.
Wales’ attempt to cope was undermined by a string of absences. Karl Darlow, Joe Rodon, Dylan Lawlor and Harry Wilson missed the entire camp, while David Brooks dropped out of the squad after the opening defeat by Portugal. Bellamy said Dan James was not fit enough to face Denmark and was left on the bench, and acknowledged Ben Davies probably should have been rested after being withdrawn late on.
“If we have a few injuries, which we had more than one or two, they miss four games,” Bellamy said. “We can deal with two, do you understand? And then the squad will get really tested. The intensity of the squad, the athleticism, really I think [the four-game break] is designed for the elites. [They can] say, we can go, we can go, we can turn over these games really, really quickly and we can change, we can change [the team] like for like because we have the numbers. So, it puts a real stress on a lot of us.”
Denmark came close to breaking the deadlock on a couple of occasions before Hojlund’s 75th-minute winner, with Danny Ward making fine saves from Hojlund and Gustav Isaksen to keep Wales level. It was Ward’s error, and a foul, that led to the penalty, but Bellamy suggested the game had not swung on that mistake.
“Obviously it’s the decisive moment, but he made two incredible saves before that,” Bellamy said. “I thought Denmark with the physicality were able to just crank it a little bit. You see their runs are really menacing, so I felt they were knocking on the door. He did incredibly well to keep it 0-0 to that time.”
Reflecting on the contrast with the Norway victory, Bellamy added: “On Thursday we were on the front foot so we’re able to shorten distance. Today, we just couldn’t work it well enough, couldn’t get the energy up enough to be able to have a bigger say in the game.”
Despite the defeat, Wales climbed to third in Nations League Group A4 thanks to their head-to-head record against Norway, who were beaten 2-1 in Portugal. Bellamy’s side travel to Oslo to face Norway next month before completing the campaign with a home game against Portugal three days later.