Craig Bellamy cut a satisfied but restless figure as he reflected on Wales’ 1–1 draw with Ghana – a game he felt his side should have won, but one that still offered clues about the evolution of his team.

Wales dominated long spells, and Bellamy was pleased with much of what he saw, but not the way his players drifted away from their fundamentals after an assured start.

“We moved the team a little bit round, but first half we were strong,” he said.

“First 20‑odd minutes, I thought we were too comfortable. Them players dropping out of areas where they shouldn’t be dropping out of.

“We lost our directness of runs, because everyone wants to come to feet and enjoy the ball. We need to make runs as well.”

For Bellamy, where Wales can improve is simplicity done well.

“The hardest thing in football is to do the simple things,” he insisted.

He liked the control – Wales had 66% of the ball, prompting his joking response, “Well, I usually like 68… we were rubbish then” – but he was clear that possession has to hurt teams, not just soothe his own.

He accepted that the Nations League-style tests to come will be very different to facing Ghana, where Wales were “the team with the ball.”

Against the likes of Portugal, Denmark and Norway, he expects to be challenged without it: “Portugal, I don’t think we’re going to have that type of possession. We’d want to, because that’s the way we like to play, but it’s a little bit of a different animal.”

If the performance left Bellamy with work still to do, Lewis Koumas’ night felt like pure upside.

The youngster’s first senior goal for Wales was the natural headline, but for Bellamy it was confirmation of a longer‑term idea: that Koumas might be the answer through the middle.

“Because we don’t really have any nines coming through,” Bellamy explained, “and we do have a lot of wingers – brilliant wingers – he could definitely be a huge asset for us on the wing.

“But due to our lack of nines coming through the system, we use him around training that way, and he’s really been electric.”

Koumas has been ever‑present in camp without always getting minutes.

“I’m over the moon he got his goal because he’s deserved it. He’s been in every camp I’ve had, and at times he hasn’t played… I see him as a real future player for Wales that’s going to have a big say.”

Bellamy’s perspective on Ghana, and on African football more broadly, comes with a depth you don’t always hear in a post‑match press conference.

He spoke warmly of his years travelling in West Africa, and particularly of a project he funded in Sierra Leone.

“The poverty… I don’t think anything can ever – you can never expect that poverty,” he reflected.

“I’ve been to Accra, it’s a lot different. Sierra Leone was tough, it was tough, but I just felt if I can help, then I’ll do whatever it is I can.”

Africa, he said, has never left him. “They say Africa’s either in you or it isn’t. Once it’s in you, it doesn’t leave you. If I have ashes, I want some in Wales and I want some going to Sierra Leone.”

On a night when Wales found a late equaliser and another potential striker, Bellamy was pensive, ruminating on the future of his team, and of the places that shaped him.

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