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The script is a familiar one by now but Wales never tire of the story. With six minutes remaining and their hopes of qualifying for Euro 2020 hanging by a thread, Gareth Bale once again
delivered for his country, heading home to spare Ryan Giggs and his players the humiliation of drawing at home against a team ranked 109th in the world. Anxiously looking across at the
assistant referee on the far side of the pitch, Giggs looked as relieved as anyone once he realised that the goal had been allowed to stand – there was some uncertainty initially as to
whether a flag had been raised – and Wales could celebrate a crucial three points. There was little else to celebrate, however, on a night when Azerbaijan came desperately close to coming
away with a result that would have left Wales needing a minor miracle to secure one of the two automatic qualification spots in Group E. Wales, in truth, were awful for long periods of the
game and it was tempting to wonder what the reaction would have been at the final whistle if Bale had not come to the rescue. It was not until first-half injury-time that Wales registered a
shot on target yet, remarkably, they went into the interval ahead. Pavlo Pashayev scored an own goal in the most farcical circumstances – the Azerbaijan right-back was not even looking when
the ball hit him on the head – and that slice of good fortune ought to have liberated Wales. That was the theory but instead they continued to look totally devoid of ideas and pedestrian in
possession. The saving grace for Wales was that it was difficult to see Azerbaijan scoring, but that all changed just before the hour mark, when Mahir Emreli equalised after bad mistakes by
Neil Taylor and Wayne Hennessey. The way that Wales conceded that goal summed up their display. Bale, with his 32nd international goal, would later get Wales out of jail but there were few
positives here other than the result. For all their possession, Wales had only three shots on target, which was one fewer than Azerbaijan, and it was hard to see what they were trying to do
at times. Nothing seemed much clearer afterwards, when Giggs said his players "were too hasty to get to the goal, too rushed" in one answer and then "did not move the ball
quick enough, weren't patient" in another. The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that Pashayev's own goal was an absolute belter and would not have looked out
of place on any Sunday morning parks pitch. Running back towards his own goal and stood about 15 yards out, Azerbaijan's right-back had no idea that Bale's deflected shot was
looping towards him. By that stage Salahat Agayev, the Azerbaijan goalkeeper, had already started to sprint from his line, and was left horribly wrong-footed on the edge of his six-yard box
as the ball rolled past him and into the empty net. Wales then conceded that poor goal, which started with Taylor carelessly giving the ball away and Emreli, running on to a lovely pass from
Ramil Sheydaev, sprinting clean through. Emreli shot weakly at Hennessey but the Wales goalkeeper could only push the ball back to the striker, who tapped in the rebound. That looked like
being that until Maksim Medvedev hacked the ball up into the air in the 84th minute and Bale, stood about six yards out, nodded over the line. "Just like the rest of the lads, he showed
great character and kept going to the end," Giggs added.