{"id":792092,"date":"2026-10-04T22:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T22:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792092\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T22:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T22:40:15","slug":"denmark-sink-wales-as-rasmus-hojlund-makes-danny-ward-pay-for-blunder-nations-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792092\/","title":{"rendered":"Denmark sink Wales as Rasmus H\u00f8jlund makes Danny Ward pay for blunder | Nations League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wales crave momentum but, a few days after surely the sweetest high of Craig Bellamy\u2019s two-year reign, a sapping international window ended on a bum note. At least until Bellamy was informed Portugal\u2019s comeback victory over Norway<\/a> means Wales will spend the next six weeks in third, and not bottom of Nations League A4 owing to their superior head-to-record. \u201cThat\u2019s actually quite nice,\u201d the Wales head coach said, slowly digesting the silver lining about half an hour after the final whistle. \u201cThat\u2019s brightened up a real rubbish moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bellamy suggested last Thursday\u2019s victory over Norway<\/a> blew the group wide open with a hand grenade but Danny Ward detonated one to give Denmark a second-half penalty and Rasmus H\u00f8jlund\u2019s flawless spot-kick ultimately proved the difference. The galling thing for Ward was that until his moment of madness, he had kept his country in the game, his best stop a sublime right-hand save to deny Gustav Isaksen. A first clean sheet since beating Liechtenstein last November also went out of the window for Wales. The life of a goalkeeper, eh?<\/p>\n

The difficulty for Wales<\/a> was always going to be trying to replicate the all-action performance from their triumph over Norway, the obvious caveat that their opponents played almost all of the second half with 10 men. The emotions felt after that game were always going to be hard to match but despite the awkward 7.45pm kick-off on a Sunday night, the Barry Horns, the brass brand who enthusiastically soundtrack Wales matches, made a racket and contributed to a fine atmosphere. Even without a full house, the anthem was stirring if not spine-tingling.<\/p>\n

Bellamy said it was impossible to keep the same XI owing to the toll of four matches across 11 days but in the end Daniel James was the only player to make way, Brennan Johnson taking his place on the wing. Ben Davies, whose only minutes for Tottenham came against a Charlton Athletic B team in the Carabao Cup, started a fourth successive game this window, together with Neco Williams and Ethan Ampadu, whose Leeds team visit Arsenal in Saturday\u2019s early kick-off when the Premier League resumes. Ward also made it four in a row and in doing so has played four times as many games for his country as he has this season for his club, Wrexham.<\/p>\n

It is a familiar problem for Wales and Bellamy, who is hopeful Joe Rodon will return from a hamstring injury in time for next month\u2019s trip to Oslo and home date with Portugal. \u201cWe started well and then as the game unfolded, the intensity started to drop for us,\u201d said the 47-year-old. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t sustain the intensity, we couldn\u2019t get the energy up enough to be able to have a bigger say in the game. I felt it in the first half: we\u2019re not moving enough now. We tried to make one or two substitutions to freshen it up. We shouldn\u2019t really have played Ben \u2013 I\u2019m just hoping he\u2019s not injured but he\u2019s a warrior. We don\u2019t have enough players playing week in, week out, certainly not at the top level. When you don\u2019t do this week in, week out, it\u2019s a shock to the system. It was a touch of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rasmus H\u00f8jlund celebrates his second-half winner for Denmark. Photograph: Ulrik Pedersen\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Ward\u2019s first real save, to deny H\u00f8jlund at the start of the second half, was smart but his second was phenomenal. Joakim M\u00e6hle raced down the left and before reaching the byline flung into the box a feathery, hanging cross. Isaksen, of Lazio, tracked the ball all the way and cleverly adjusted his body position to pick his spot, the target the bottom right-hand corner of Ward\u2019s goal. Isaksen appeared to have executed the perfect header but Ward got a brilliant right hand to the ball and pushed it on to his right post. At that point, Ward was Wales\u2019s hero.<\/p>\n

But then, out of nothing, Ward conceded a clumsy penalty. Ben Cabango shifted the ball to his goalkeeper, from right to left, but Ward, looking to move the ball on again, inadvertently shovelled a miskicked pass straight to Isaksen. A panicked Ward tried to make amends but his desperation got the better of him and he clattered into Isaksen and the damage was done. H\u00f8jlund waited for Ward to dive to his left and slotted the ball into the opposite corner.<\/p>\n

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Sorba Thomas threatened on the left flank, intermittently destroying the Denmark<\/a> right-back Rasmus Kristensen and Liam Cullen, now of Leicester, was industrious as a playmaker. But Wales failed to test Mads Hermansen, a former Leicester clubmate of Ward\u2019s. It was almost as if this was the fourth game in a marathon camp. \u201cPhysically, it makes no sense,\u201d Bellamy said. \u201cWe know it\u2019s a complete disadvantage to us \u2026 I think, really, it is designed for the elite.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wales crave momentum but, a few days after surely the sweetest high of Craig Bellamy\u2019s two-year reign, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-792092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}