Wales – Kazakhstan

Wales has an excellent chance of success in the match against Kazakhstan national team

The Kazakhstan national team recently completed one of the bleakest periods in its football history. Having found themselves in League B of the Nations League for the first time last season under Stanislav Cherchesov's leadership the team lost five of their six games in the tournament without scoring a single goal all autumn. Kazakhstan's only point came in a first-round home game against Norway, after which they stopped playing football. Cherchesov has been sacked, and the team will be led by acting head coach Ali Aliyev. Wales have a diametrically opposite emotional state. It is also connected with the fourth draw of the Nations League last autumn. The Welsh also played in League B, but did not lose a single time, which allowed them to go to the strongest division for the first time in history. Bookmakers have identified the hosts as clear favourites for the upcoming encounter, offering odds of 1.19 on their victory. Wales for the first time after the breakthrough at UEFA EURO 2016 produced such results as last year. The team played in the same quartet as Iceland, Turkey and Montenegro. Twice with the Turks and once with the Icelanders, the Welsh made peace, while the other three matches were won. Given that the British national team failed to qualify for last year's UEFA EURO in Germany and had a pale showing at the World Cup in Qatar, at least the next Nations League will present them with matches against top-class opponents. Kazakhstan, along with Belgium, Wales, Northern Macedonia and Liechtenstein, is too early to write off, even despite last year's debacle, as described above. In 2022-2023, Kazakhstan's players won their way into League B, won their group in League C, and also made a splash in the qualifying group for the European Championships. Then Kazakhstan managed to reach the play-offs, but beat Greece there, to put it mildly, failed (0:5). It is hard to imagine that the guests will come to Cardiff to play open football. Firing the head coach always leads to a certain shake-up, which disciplines the players from Kazakhstan. It is unlikely that in Cardiff will be a lot of goals.