LONDON: Rarely has a loss felt this good.

Despite a 2-0 defeat to Bosnia-Herzegovina in their penultimate Group ‘B’ qualifier, Wales reached their first international tournament since the 1958 World Cup on Saturday thanks to Cyprus beating Israel 2-1.

Seconds after the match in Bosnia ended, Wales learned that the result in Jerusalem had booked them, a place at next year’s Euro 2016 finals in France.

While Belgium’s players were also elated after reaching the finals with a 4-1 win in Andorra and the Italians were beaming as they made sure of their spot with a 3-1 win in Azerbaijan, that was nothing compared to the Welsh celebrations in Zenica.

The Wales players dived in unison, cheered, hugged and jumped for joy with the several hundred travelling fans, all of them forgetting decades of failure after a long sought-after success.

“It’s probably the best loss of my life,” Wales skipper and Real Madrid star Gareth Bale said.

“This is right up there in my career. It was a dream from when I was a small child to play in a major tournament. To achieve it is a dream but it doesn’t stop there. We have got to go over there and do some business in France.

“It shows exactly what we’re about. We’re like brothers on the pitch.”

Bosnia went in front after 71 minutes in Zenica when Miralem Pjanic delivered a long free-kick into the area and substitute Milan Djuric sent a looping header over goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey.

Vedad Ibisevic added a second in the dying moments as Bosnia kept their play-off hopes alive.

But it didn’t matter for a buoyant Wales as Cyprus stunned Israel 2-1 in Jerusalem thanks to an 80th-minute drive from Jason Demetriou.

Belgium leapfrogged Wales into first place with their win taking them to 20 points followed by Wales on 18, Bosnia 14, Israel 13 and Cyprus 12.

Radja Nainggolan, Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard and Laurent Depoitre scored for Belgium they reached their first Euros since co-hosting the tournament in 2000.

Italy went through after their win in a Group H match in Baku and 11 countries have now booked their places alongside hosts France.

As well as Wales, Belgium and Italy, Iceland, the Czech Republic, England, Portugal, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Austria and Spain are all through.

The remaining automatic qualifiers and playoff spots will be settled from Sunday to Tuesday when the final games are played.

KNIFE-EDGE

Following Saturday’s matches, the Netherlands, Turkey, Bosnia, Israel, Cyprus, Norway and Croatia are either in contention for second place or a playoff berth.

The Dutch, who have not missed a Euro finals since 1984, kept their playoff chances alive with a 2-1 win in Kazakhstan.

The fate of the 1988 European champions will be decided on Tuesday when they host the already-qualified Czechs and Turkey, also vying for third place, welcome group leaders Iceland who have already sealed their spot and squandered a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 with Latvia.

Turkey won 2-0 away to the Czech Republic to reach 15 points while the Dutch have 13 and must win their last match to have any hope of a playoff spot.

Midfielders Georginio Wijna­ldum and Wesley Sneijder scored in either half for the Netherlands to ensure the fight for third goes down to the final round.

In Prague, Selcuk Inan gave Turkey the lead with a 62nd-minute penalty with Hakan Calhanoglu adding a second with 10 minutes left.

The tussle for who qualifies with Italy from Group ‘H’ is going to the wire after Norway defeated Malta 2-0 and Croatia beat Bulgaria 3-0.

Italy are secure with 21 points, Norway have 19 and Croatia 17. Norway play in Italy on Tuesday while Croatia travel to Malta.

Stephan El Shaarawy ended a three-year drought by scoring the winning goal for Italy.

After Eder’s opener and an equaliser from Dmitri Nazarov, El Shaarawy finished off a counterattack in the 43rd for his first national team goal since November 2012.

Manchester United’s Matteo Darmian added another for Italy in the second half.

“Now that we’ve qualified it might have seemed easy but nothing is easy,” said Italy coach Antonio Conte, who took over when Cesare Prandelli resigned after the Azzurri’s first-round elimination from last year’s World Cup.

Norway took a big step towards qualifying when Alexander Tettey and Alexander Soderlund scored either side of halftime in Oslo.

But Croatia kept up the pressure for an automatic qualifying spot with goals from Ivan Perisic, Ivan Rakitic and Nikola Kalinic in a match played in an empty stadium in Zagreb as part of the punishment for a swastika that was painted on the pitch before a match against Italy in June.

Published in Dawn, October 12th , 2015

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