Cardiff City Stadium
2nd June 2026
A friendly that we didn’t want to be playing in this context, another team’s World Cup warm-up, but play-off heartache is in the past now and we look towards the Nations League A with matches against Portugal, Denmark and Norway.
Tonight Cymru (37th in the rankings) took on Ghana (74th) to celebrate the FAW’s 150th anniversary. The Black Stars are on their way to North America for the World Cup where we will all be supporting them (for at least one game). This was only the second time that Cymru has taken on an African nation, with the only other time being in 1998 when Cymru lost 4-0 to Tunisia.
Before we get into the match, I just want to say how good the 150th anniversary shirts look. If you haven’t seen them, they are Connor Roberts retro.
Cymru started off really brightly with Dan James having two really good chances in the first 15 minutes. The first was a header that was brilliantly saved by the Ghanaian keeper. Then with 13 minutes on the clock after great work outside the box by Cymru, the ball rebounded to the feet of Dan James who smacked the ball goalwards only to see it bounce off the crossbar.
After this opening burst by Cymru the game went quiet. With an unusually small crowd at the Cardiff City Stadium, Y Wal Goch voices were not there to lift the team.
Although Y Wal Goch did scream near the half-hour mark, they were all in shock as Karl Darlow passed the ball straight to Jordan Ayew. Thankfully Ayew was just as shocked as us and didn’t control it properly, giving Darlow a chance to recover.
The first half ended with Cymru having 62% possession, but unfortunately after the first quarter of an hour, they didn’t look like scoring.
The second half started the way the first half ended; with this Bellamy made changes at the hour mark, bringing on Nathan Broadhead, Lewis Koumas and, for his first cap, Cameron Congreve.
As always when one team has lots of possession and doesn’t take their chances, the other side goes up the other end and scores. This happened after 66 minutes when a misplaced pass on the halfway line led to a break for Ghana. After making his way into the box, Caleb Yirenkyi forced a good save from Darlow, only for the rebound to bounce off Neco Williams’ knee onto the post and back into the path of Yirenkyi for him to knock it home from short range.
Cymru started to get back into the game after the goal with Cameron Congreve playing really well on the right wing, playing with the confidence of a player with caps well into double figures, not just minutes into his first match. He produced a few crosses that Kieffer Moore would have loved to have been on the end of in the first half. It would be good to see the pair link up soon. Right and left-footed crosses and not being afraid to take on players, Congreve took his chance tonight.
With the match deep into added-on time, Cymru were getting closer and closer with a couple of headed chances from Lewis Koumas, but unfortunately, they just missed the mark. Then with just over two minutes left of added-on time, Koumas took his chance. After an excellent cross from Neco Williams, Koumas swooped to head the ball home to end the game 1-1.
There were a few positives to come out of the game despite the draw: Koumas getting a goal and Congreve already looking at home on the wing. It’s on to Romania on Saturday now.
Our thanks for the words by Stephen, photos from James, Andrew and Rhys, video from James and graphic by Andrew Challis.