Wales set up Poland showdown after James seals emphatic win over Finland

On a night when Wales knew they needed the fresh blood to fire, how they delivered. A comprehensive victory over Finland means Wales have now won each of their last three playoffs in Cardiff and if they beat Poland here in the final on Tuesday they will secure a place at the Euro 2024 finals in Germany this summer. None of the goalscorers featured at Euro 2016 but all played a significant part in ensuring their hopes of reaching a fourth major tournament in five remain very much alive.

The pick of the goals was an unstoppable free-kick from Neco Williams but it was Daniel James, on his 50th appearance, who capped the ­scoring, rounding the Finland goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky after a calamitous error by a dawdling Miro Tenho, the Finland centre-back. David Brooks gave Wales the ideal leg-up before Williams doubled Wales’s advantage but Teemu Pukki struck before half-time for Finland.

Brennan Johnson’s finish two minutes into the second half took the heat out of the tie. Given the apparent changing of the guard, it felt particularly apt that Johnson, not part of the squad at Euro 2020, Williams and Brooks, bit-part players at that tournament, were at the forefront here.

A few minutes before kick-off, home supporters could be forgiven for suffering flashbacks. After all, Wales had been here before; it was almost two years to the day that they overcame Austria in a World Cup playoff semi-final. Gareth Bale scored twice that night, including a brilliant free-kick which flew into the top corner. It was fitting, then, that Williams – at the same end – found almost the identical spot in similarly spectacularly style. Williams lashed in with an emphatic right-foot shot after Harry Wilson, a dead-ball specialist, backheeled the free-kick into his path.

Wales could hardly have got off to a better start. Rob Page was double fist-pumping into the air inside three minutes, after the first real attack of the game ended with the ball in the net. There was carnage in the stands as Brooks stabbed in the rebound after Wilson’s initial strike was repelled by the left hand of Hradecky, the Bayer Leverkusen goalkeeper and Finland captain. Wilson burst into the box after a wonderful one-two with Tottenham’s Johnson, tasked with the leading the line. Kieffer Moore, a reliable performer for his country, began among the substitutes.

With half-time looming, everything appeared rosy. And then Pukki grabbed Finland, bidding to reach only their second major tournament, a lifeline, poking a shot into the corner of Danny Ward’s goal.

Chris Mepham and Ben Davies, who wore the captain’s armband with Aaron Ramsey on the bench, were guilty of getting sucked into the ball and Joel Pohjanpalo managed to free Pukki. Mepham tried to gnaw at Pukki but the former Norwich striker, Finland’s all-time leading goalscorer now playing for Minnesota, registered his 40th goal for his country with a typically cute finish. Just as the Cardiff crowd allowed themselves to relax somewhat, Pukki trampled on the brewing feelgood factor. Wales’s players appeared the more downbeat as they filed towards the tunnel.

By then, Pukki had offered a couple of warnings. He could not ­generate enough power on an early strike from an awkward angle after racing on to a scooped pass by the centre-back Robert Ivanov and later failed to punish Wales after a careless blind pass by Mepham, who operated on the right side of a three-man defence as usual. Daniel Håkans volleyed over Finland’s first chance, after Pukki kept a hanging cross alive. Wales were braced for Finland to frustrate and flummox but the visitors enjoyed plenty of the ball and Page’s side had to show a degree of patience.

Given the deflating end to the first half, Page required his team to re-emerge unscarred. What happened next was the perfect response, Johnson restoring Wales’s two-goal advantage and providing the hosts with some welcome breathing space. Wilson’s free-kick flew towards the back post, Ethan Ampadu – winning his 50th cap aged 23 – attacked the ball and after Brooks failed to make clean contact, Johnson hooked it past Hradecky. There has been a nagging sense that there is so much more to come from Johnson in a Wales shirt and while his strike – on the face of it – was easily forgettable, it felt a pivotal goal for his country.

Brooks was on his final descent towards the home dugout when Wilson went close to adding a fourth, flashing a shot inches wide after a driving run. Brooks left the pitch to a standing ovation when he was replaced by Moore – who has scored for fun since returning to Ipswich on loan in January – and then was told by the Romanian referee, Istvan Kovacs, to depart at his nearest exit, prompting mass adulation from the Red Wall in the Canton Stand. Though housed at the opposite end of the pitch, that block of ardent, noisy Wales supporters arguably enjoyed the finest view of Williams’s right-foot rocket in the first half.

Moore sent a shot straight at Hradecky and Davies had a header surprisingly disallowed following a VAR review but Wales completed a thoroughly satisfying evening’s work when James notched their fourth.