By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (March 21^st 2024)

“It is half-time” says Page

Cymru manager Rob Page was upbeat after his charges – without the recovering Aaron Ramsey emphatically beat Markku Kanerva’s Finland 4-1 at Cardiff City Stadium tonight in their Path A play-off for the chance to join Group D at Germany’s Euro2024 this summer.

However, Page knows that the task is far from completed. “It goes to show how far we have come, but the message is, it is half-time,” he told S4C.

France, the Netherlands and Austria await the winners of Cymru’s match against Poland on Tuesday. Captained by the prolific Robert Lewandowski, Poland demolished Estonia 5-1 in the other Path A match. They spread the goals with Lewandowski, failing to add to his tally.

Poland will pose a far stiffer test than Finland achieved tonight, and even though Lewandowski did not score tonight and is having a poor season at Barçelona by his standards, he remains a potent threat.

Having spread the goals tonight, Poland has proved that even if Lewandowski fails to hit the target, they can still win impressively.

“We know they pose a different threat to tonight. It will be a tough test for us, but you know what more motivation do you need than one win away from the fourth major tournament, so we don’t care who’s outside – in the most respectful way, we don’t care what team’s outside. “At home, I think that’s 20 out of 23 games unbeaten at home.

The supporters play a massive part, so we don’t care who comes to see, we’ll go toe to toe and have a go.”

The Other Paths

Tuesday night will settle the issue of which teams will win the last three berths for Euro2024. Wales will play Poland in Path A to decide which of them will join Group D.

Bosnia and Herzegovina lost 1-2 to Ukraine despite taking the lead after 56 minutes through an own goal by Mykola Matviyenko. However, Ukraine turned the match on its head in the last five minutes with goals from Roman Yaremchuk and Artem Dovbyk. That set up a Path B decider against Iceland who thrashed Israel 4-1.

Eran Zahavi gave Israel the lead after 31 minutes, Albert Guðmundsson equalised after 39 minutes. Arnór Ingvi Traustason scored the winner three minutes later. Israeli defender Roy Reivo received his marching orders after 73 minutes, allowing Guðmundsson to complete his hat-trick with goals after 83 and 87 minutes.

The Path B play-off will decide whether Iceland or Ukraine joins Belgium, Slovakia and Romania in Group E.

Georgia beat a ten-man Luxembourg – Maxime Chanot was sent off after 56 minutes – 2-0, thanks to Budu Zivzivadze’s brace. That set up a Path C clash against Greece who hammered Kazakhstan 5-0, for the right to join Portugal, Turkey, and the Czech Republic in Group F. Greece raced to a 4-0 lead at half time and the scoring was completed with less than 5 minutes of normal time remaining by an own goal by Yerkin Tapalov.