The 2022 World Cup qualifiers continue on the weekend and on Sunday the 5th of September we have a meeting between Belarus and Wales.
The game will take place at the Central Stadium, Kazan, which is in Russia, meaning Belarus have lost their home advantage.
Belarus begin this round of fixtures with 3 points to their name, the same as Wales but the Welsh have a game in hand.
1️⃣9️⃣9️⃣ caps and counting 💪#TogetherStronger pic.twitter.com/sR1iZ8Jy8H— Wales 🏴 (@Cymru) September 2, 2021
1️⃣9️⃣9️⃣ caps and counting 💪#TogetherStronger pic.twitter.com/sR1iZ8Jy8H
Belarus come into the match on the back of a 1-0 defeat in the Czech Republic on Thursday night. It was a decent performance by Belarus, who were expected to lose the game by a greater margin and the only goal of the match was scored in the 34th minute.
That result means Belarus have lost each of their last 3 fixtures including a heavy 8-0 defeat in Belgium, which was their second game in the group. However, Belarus did make a good start to the campaign with a 4-2 home victory over Estonia and they will be hoping to at least do the double over the Estonian team in the group.
Trends show in their last 17 games in World Cup qualification, Belarus have recorded only 2 wins. They have been struggling to keep clean sheets and Belarus have conceded at least 1 goal in each of their last 12 World Cup qualifying matches.
Wales travel to Russia having played a friendly match in Finland. The game ended 0-0 but Wales will feel as though they should have won the match having missed from the penalty spot and created the best chances throughout the 90 minutes.
Wales most recent competitive fixture came at the 2020 European Championship in the summer and they were eliminated from the competition at the round of 16 stage, losing 4-0 to Denmark. Therefore, Wales have won only one of their last 7 games, with defeats coming against Italy in the European Championship and against France in a friendly.
Trends show Wales have proven difficult to beat in recent times and they have been undefeated in 14 of their last 17 games. In terms of World Cup qualifying, Wales have lost only one of their last 7 away fixtures, and they have scored at least one goal in 8 of their last 9 away World Cup qualifying games.
Team news and Belarus are unlikely to make many changes from the starting XI which played against the Czech Republic. Roman Yuzepchuk and Artem Bykov are pushing for a place in the team.
Wales travel without the suspended duo of Harry Wilson and Connor Roberts. They are also missing the influence of Aaron Ramsey in midfield, Joe Rodon in defence, and Kieffer Moore in attack.
This may not be as simple for Wales as it seems, especially with a few key players missing from the squad. However, they should still have the quality to score the goals to win this game and could do so while keeping a clean sheet.