Kazakhstan, 114th in the Fifa rankings and all in yellow, represented a banana skin on an artificial surface in Astana. Their last World Cup qualifying victory was almost 12 years ago, a narrow success over the Faroe Islands, but this was anything but a straightforward win for Wales.
By the end the chances were totting up, Craig Bellamy’s side clinging on with the Kazakhstan substitute Serikzhan Muzhikov cracking the bar with the final action, a 95th-minute free-kick. The visitors were ultimately grateful for Kieffer Moore’s first-half strike, which was sufficient to earn a victory that keeps alive their hopes of automatic qualification from Group J.
The challenges of a 7,000-mile round trip traversing six time zones meant it was always going to be a game where any kind of win would do. Even more so given Wales’s only full training session came 24 hours before kick-off. As it happened, it was an unconvincing and sticky display.
The most polished Wales performer was the 19-year-old debutant Dylan Lawlor, with the Cardiff centre-back assured in and out of possession. Relegation has bred opportunity in the capital and this was another milestone for Lawlor, who only made his Wales Under-21s debut in June.
The goal stemmed from a free-kick won and taken by Harry Wilson. Liam Cullen flicked on Wilson’s slick left-foot cross and the goalkeeper Temirlan Anarbekov, on debut, could only parry the ball to the edge of the six-yard box, where Moore stabbed in.
Bellamy recently said he was captivated by Wrexham’s journey to the Championship under their Hollywood owners and Moore, on his 50th cap, became the first Wrexham player to represent Wales since the defender Steve Evans in 2008, when they were in non-league.
Wales had to ride waves of Kazakhstan pressure and there was clear relief when the referee, Alejandro Hernández, blew for full-time.
Galymzhan Kenzhebek was Kazakhstan’s liveliest player and registered a hat-trick of near-misses, including rattling the bar himself via Karl Darlow’s fingertips at full stretch, before being withdrawn midway through the second half. It felt like a bizarre substitution given moments earlier Kenzhebek skipped past four Wales players and poked an effort just wide of a post but Islam Chesnokov, Kenzhebek’s replacement, also caused problems.
Chesnokov’s neat back-heel allowed the overlapping wing-back Bagdat Kairov to send a low cross into the six-yard box, where Maksim Samorodov was waiting to equalise only for an alert Lawlor to intervene and hack clear. Lawlor, who has made just eight senior starts for the League One leaders, Cardiff, where he recently signed a new three-year contract, belted out the national anthem before kick-off and ably deputised for the injured Joe Rodon.
“He was just so impressive and we needed him to be,” said the Wales manager. “You think: ‘How are we ever going to cope without Joe?’ We’ve gained a player from this.”
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Bellamy anticipated an awkward test. Last week he acknowledged Kazakhstan possess more players partaking in the Champions League this season than in his squad after Kairat Almaty’s progress in a playoff against Celtic. There were four Kairat players in the hosts’ XI, including Dastan Satpayev, the 17-year-old who will join Chelsea next summer, and Anarbekov, who saved two penalties in the shootout that eliminated Celtic.
Ben Davies, the Wales captain, said: “It wasn’t our best performance but these are tough places to come and to walk away with three points was exactly what we wanted. On paper people will look at Kazakhstan thinking we should dominate the game and score a couple of goals but it is never going to be easy.” Asked about Wales’s next qualifier, against the group favourites, Belgium, in Cardiff in October, the Tottenham defender added: “We came here and put ourselves in a position that it is now an important game.”
Wales had few chances to double their advantage, aside from a tame Wilson strike, and instead they had to concentrate their focus at the other end in the final minutes. Chesnokov lashed a strike over the bar and the typically dependable Davies headed clear at the back post a Dastan Satpayev cross, conscious Kairov was lurking.
Ali Aliyev, the Kazakhstan manager, slowly dragged his fingers down his cheeks after Muzhikov’s stoppage-time effort clinked the woodwork. “We had to dig in,” conceded Bellamy.