Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? They were the unmistakable lyrics a dozen or so Wales supporters sang as they hopped off a metro escalator and descended on a stadium adjacent to a 500,000 sq metre shopping mall. A few days on from Cafu wishing Wales good luck wearing a tricolour bucket hat now synonymous with the nation, they are the kind of words that could have possibly been running through Gareth Bale’s mind after his penalty snatched a late draw on their first World Cup appearance since 1958. Bale spent almost the entire match on the fringes but he operates in his own divine way and, after taking a couple of deep breaths, blasted his spot-kick in with eight minutes to play to cancel out Timothy Weah’s fine first-half opener.
This was a game that seemed to take on an extra dose of significance after England’s rout of Iran, with Gareth Southgate’s side primed to qualify from Group B, and for so long it seemed Wales would be out of the equation. They trailed to Weah’s goal, which stemmed from a brilliant run by Christian Pulisic. But Bale, this his 109th cap for his country, has a knack for delivering in the big moments and after being felled in the box, he powered in to get Wales up and running. From a Wales perspective, the dynamic of this game shifted not because of Bale but because of the half-time arrival of Kieffer Moore, who was surprisingly left out of Rob Page’s starting lineup.
