On a night when Wales knew they needed the fresh blood to fire, how they delivered. Victory over Finland means Wales have now won each of their last three playoffs in Cardiff and if they beat Poland here in the final on Tuesday they will secure a place at the Euro 2024 finals in Germany this summer. None of the goalscorers featured at Euro 2016 – several of this vibrant starting lineup would have been rooting for Wales at school then– but all played a significant part in ensuring their hopes of reaching a third successive European Championship and a fourth major tournament in five remain very much alive.
At the final whistle there was a warm outpouring of applause, a communal acknowledgment of a job well done – Wales ultimately blew Finland away after a brief scare – but the celebrations were understandably restrained. There is a reason the Wales manager, Rob Page, was at pains to say the next few days are tantamount to the half-time interval. After all, Poland await after they demolished 10-man Estonia 5-1 in their semi-final. Unusually, Robert Lewandowski was not on the scoresheet. Perhaps the 35-year-old Barcelona striker is keeping his powder dry for when it really matters.
The pick of the goals was an unstoppable free-kick from Neco Williams but it was Daniel James, on his 50th appearance, who capped the scoring. James rounded the Finland goalkeeper and captain, Lukas Hradecky, after a calamitous error by a dawdling Miro Tenho, the Finland centre-back. David Brooks opened the scoring early on to give Wales the ideal leg-up before Williams doubled Wales’s advantage.
Teemu Pukki scored before the break for Finland but Brennan Johnson’s strike two minutes into the second half took the heat out of the tie. Given the apparent changing of the guard, it felt particularly apt that Johnson, not part of the squad that made it to the last 16 at the delayed Euro 2020 – and indeed Williams and Brooks, bit-part players at that tournament – had such a sizeable impact.
A few minutes before kick-off supporters could be forgiven for suffering flashbacks. After all, Wales had been here before; it was almost two years to the day that they overcame Austria in a World Cup playoff semi-final. Gareth Bale scored twice that night, including a brilliant free-kick which flew into the top corner. It was fitting, then, that Williams – at the same end – found almost the identical spot in similarly spectacular style. Williams lashed in with an emphatic right-foot shot after Harry Wilson backheeled the free-kick into his path.
Wales could hardly have got off to a better start. Page was double fist-pumping into the air inside three minutes, after the first real attack of the game ended with the ball in the net. Brooks stabbed in the rebound after Wilson’s initial strike was repelled by the left hand of Hradecky. Wilson burst into the box after a wonderful one-two with Tottenham’s Johnson, tasked with the leading the line. Kieffer Moore, a reliable performer for his country, began among the substitutes.
With half-time looming, everything appeared rosy. And then Pukki grabbed Finland, bidding to reach only their second major tournament, a lifeline, poking a shot into the corner of Danny Ward’s goal. Chris Mepham and Ben Davies, who wore the captain’s armband with Aaron Ramsey on the bench, were guilty of getting sucked into the ball and Joel Pohjanpalo managed to free Pukki. Mepham tried to gnaw at Pukki but the striker, Finland’s all-time leading scorer now of Minnesota, registered his 40th goal for his country with a typically cute finish.
Given the deflating end to the first half from a Wales perspective, Page required his team to re-emerge unscarred. What happened next was the perfect response, Johnson restoring Wales’s two-goal advantage and providing Wales with some welcome breathing space. Wilson’s free-kick flew towards the back post, Ethan Ampadu – winning his 50th cap at age 23 – attacked the ball and after Brooks failed to make clean contact, Johnson hooked it past Hradecky. There has been a nagging sense that there is so much more to come from Johnson in a Wales shirt and while his strike was easily forgettable, it felt a pivotal goal for his country.
Brooks was on his final descent towards the home dugout when Wilson went close to adding a fourth. Brooks left the pitch to a standing ovation, to be replaced by Moore – who has scored goals for fun since returning to Ipswich on loan – and then was told by the Romanian referee, Istvan Kovacs, to depart at his nearest exit, prompting adulation from the Red Wall in the Canton Stand.
Though housed at the opposite end of the pitch, that block of ardent Wales supporters arguably had the best view in the house of Williams’s right-foot rocket in the first half. Moore skittled a shot at Hradecky and Davies had a header disallowed late on, by which point the damage was already done.
