Craig Bellamy predicted a sleepless night and he will not have been the only one. Most of Wales, population a little more than three million, will have pulled the curtains, struggling to shift the pervading sense of an opportunity missed. “My heart hurts,” he said approaching midnight in Cardiff and the gravity of it all may only fully sink in when Bosnia and Herzegovina, after prevailing in a World Cup playoff in the capital, host Italy on Tuesday for a place at this summer’s showpiece.
Wales fell at the penultimate hurdle, chalking up another near-miss after the anguish of another penalty shootout defeat, two years on from their last against Poland. Bellamy has breathed life into the team, renewing optimism and arming his players with naked belief, but this is unmistakably a blow. The easy thing to do at this juncture is preach about the green shoots but at this point nobody wants to think too hard about the merits of being promoted to the top tier of the Nations League or the home nations Euro 2028.
