Wales: Craig Bellamy thrilled to navigate ‘crazy’ Kazakhstan build-up

By real world, Bellamy meant the aforementioned obstacles he and his players had to overcome in order to win in Astana.

Some of those setbacks presented opportunities, none more so than the injuries that allowed 19-year-old centre-back Dylan Lawlor to make his debut from the start.

It was a chance that the Cardiff City player seized with a flourish. Lawlor was composed in possession, strong in the air and sound with his positioning.

His “brilliant” performance, as Bellamy described it, was a shining light in an otherwise patchy team performance, and his emergence adds to the coach’s defensive options for the rest of this campaign.

Wales now sit out the next two Group J matchdays as they play friendlies against Canada and England before facing Belgium at Cardiff City Stadium on 13 October.

If Wales are to have a realistic chance of staying top, they need to win all three of their remaining matches and hope Belgium drop points more than once, not just in Cardiff.

After their chaotic 4-3 defeat in Brussels in June, Bellamy said “there’s a lot of life in this group” and it is a belief he still holds.

Or at least, that is what he is saying. The former Liverpool and Manchester City forward showed with his comments before and after the Kazakhstan game that we perhaps should not take each one of his public utterances at face value.

“You just don’t know,” he said on Thursday, citing as evidence the unlikely turn of events on the final matchday of last year’s Nations League that saw Wales win their group.