Craig Bellamy celebrated the first win of his managerial career as Wales beat Montenegro in one of the strangest games he has ever seen.
With heavy rain creating conditions that were at times ridiculous, there was a goal after 37 seconds, Stevan Jovetic hitting the crossbar from inside his own half and Kieffer Moore missing an empty-netter from inside the six-yard box.
There were also some rather curious things off the pitch. The second half began with a fireworks display among the home fans, who were seated in an open-air stand, which lasted almost a minute.
This match was moved to Niksic due to the poor quality of the pitch at the Podgorica City Stadium and the new venue looked more like a county level athletics stadium than a football stadium.
No matter. Wales played superbly in the 0-0 draw against Turkey, Bellamy’s first game in charge, but failed to score. This time, they were already two up within three minutes.
Montenegro failed to clear Connor Roberts’ cross and when the ball rebounded off Harry Wilson, Moore headed it in off the post.
Wilson then quickly doubled the lead with a glorious strike from 25 yards.
Jovetic almost scored an even better goal when he latched on to a misplaced pass from Ethan Ampadu and lofted it past Karl Darlow from his own half, but the ball rebounded off the crossbar.
Darlow then brilliantly saved shots from Nikola Krstovic and Jovetic before Ben Davies did even better by clearing Driton Camaj’s subsequent effort off the line.
Wales’ bold approach began to look a little reckless after the break and they came close to scoring several times, although Moore should have sealed the match when he turned in Davies’ cross from four yards.
Not long after, Vladimir Jovovic hit the post from 25 yards and Montenegro finally got the goal they deserved, when Camaj slid home after Krstovic’s cross had taken the Welsh defence by surprise.
