At least there was no stoppage time. It was a friendly game the Wales manager, Rob Page, confessed he did not really want and so perhaps it was inevitable his team would play out a forgettable stalemate in their first meeting with South Korea.
The preface to the match was Wales’s sorry record of late – it is now one win in 13 matches – and if that does not improve in Latvia on Monday, when they resume their ailing Euro 2024 qualifying campaign, the glare will only intensify on the under-pressure Page.
Uefa regulations stipulate that nations in odd-numbered qualifying groups must fulfil blank dates in the calendar when group rivals are playing and so here was the non-event seemingly nobody wanted. “I said I didn’t want to play it and I got criticised for saying it but that’s the truth,” Page said afterwards. “From a selfish point of view, I stick by that. We didn’t want any injuries. We’ve got a load of positives out of it and we take that momentum on to Monday’s game.”
