Liechtenstein 0-1 Wales: Banned Craig Bellamy ‘calm’, says Cremers

That next game is an important one.

Wales need to beat North Macedonia in Cardiff to finish second in Group J and guarantee a home play-off semi-final.

Fail to win at Cardiff City Stadium and Bellamy’s side will still make the play-offs thanks to their Nations League success, but they will be away for their semi-final.

They will need to improve on their performance in Liechtenstein and they will be without Ethan Ampadu and Jordan James – captain and goalscorer respectively in Vaduz – who are suspended after receiving their second yellow cards of the campaign on Saturday.

At least Wales will be travelling home after a win, though.

Before beating Liechtenstein, they had lost three games in succession and four of their previous five.

The performance in Vaduz will not have impressed many people, but the result keeps them in contention to qualify for next summer’s World Cup.

“One game at the time, we knew we had to take care of today. We did that, and now our focus goes to North Macedonia,” said Cremers.

“I thought we played really well over there [the 1-1 draw in March], creating some really good opportunities.

“It’s not easy to get a win against them, that’s a fact we’ve seen this group. So it will be another difficult game in Cardiff, but obviously this time we play at home, we’ve got our fans in numbers and we’ll look to turn it into a positive result.”

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