Montenegro 1-0 Wales: Dogged Welsh Stricted By Tough Euro 2012 Newcomers

Mirko Vucinic scored the only goal in a dogged opening Euro 2012 Qualfying match between Montenegro and Wales.

The 26-year-old forward was the stand-out player during the game, and he ran the Wales defence ragged throughout, and probably should have scored more.

Wales did, however, give a good account of themselves with Gareth Bale being the shining light in John Toshack's side, but for all the good work up front, the Welsh defence undercut that with a poor performance for the majority of the game.

Wales started the brightest against the European Championship newcomers Montenegro, with Craig Bellamy and Gareth Bale linking up well, and the first meaningful attack was in a Bellamy freekick, won by Bale, that evaded everyone.

The 21-year-old winger right in the centre of the action minutes later when a mazy run into the penalty area ended up with the ball being flashed across the goal, but only the red shirts of Montenegro were in sight so it was comfortably cleared.

It was, however, The Brave Falcons of Montenegro who came the closest to scoring first. Savo Pavicevic first managed to work some space down the right flank before finding top goalscorer Mirko Vucinic unmarked box, but he sent his header wide from just eight yards out.

Moments later, Branko Boskovic tried his luck from the edge of the area, but a scuffed attempt allowed Wayne Hennessey to get down to his right and save well.

The Wales defence continued to look a bit shaky, and were soon made to pay the ultimate punishment. Mirko Vucinic turned James Collins with ease to bear down on goal, but his job was made even easier by Hennessey, who tried to pre-empt the forwards effort by going down low, so the 26-year-old slotted home with class mid-way through the first half.

Wales responded well after the goal but, for all their huffing the puffing, they could not break down the determined Montenegro opposition before the half-time whistle.

Vucinic, and Montenegro as a whole, started the second –half where they left off and came close to a second when he curled a dipping free-kick just inches over the bar.

Bale tried his luck with his own free-kick as the hour mark approached, but his low effort skimmed past the far post as Mladen Bozovic was stationary in goal.

A few minutes later and the two sides swapped corners, first with Montenegro causing more panic in the Welsh defence with three straight corners, then two from Wales but forced a similar scramble and ended with Bozovic forcing the ball over his bar.

An entertaining end-to-end match was starting to appear and Montenegro’s Radomir Djalovic did well to get on the end of a long Vucinic ball, and a slight hesitation from Hennessey nearly let the striker in but the 25-year-old goalkeeper managed to gain composure and did enough to put Djalovic off.

The introduction of Robert Earnshaw liven up Wales, who started to really look out of ideas, but his first contribution was to try to do it all on his own and he ended up hitting the ball high, wide and not so handsome.

Wales’ final chances to capitalise on their increased pressure in the final moments of the match saw Simon Church connect with a fantastic Gareth Bale cross, but he saw his header bounce back off the bar and away out of danger.

Moments later and Church thought he had done what he failed to do earlier as he pounced a rebound from an Earnshaw shot to tuck the ball away, but his celebrations did not last long as he was quickly and correctly ruled offside.

In the end though, it was the story of the first half again as for all of Wales’ efforts, they just couldn’t find that breakthrough they, arguably, deserved and deep into injury time it was Montenegro who nearly scored again as, with Wales pushing hard up field, Fatos Beciraj was left all alone to simply slot home but he lost his nerve and the chance went as the full-time whistle blew.