Comments and predictions for Wales vs Kazakhstan: Home team wins convincingly

Latest Wales vs Kazakhstan team information

Topping Wales' long-term injury list is captain Aaron Ramsey, who will miss the rest of the season following recent hamstring surgery – capping off another injury-plagued season for the Cardiff City star.

Harry Wilson – who has been directly involved in 10 goals in his last 12 starts for his country, including scoring in four of the last five – is also unavailable, as are Ethan Ampadu, Rhys Norrington-Davies and Ipswich Town winger Wes Burns.

With a number of key players out of action, coach Craig Bellamy is looking for inspiration from new faces. 18-year-old Kai Andrews is waiting for his first chance to play for the national team, while midfielder Tom Lawrence (Rangers) has been recalled after a four-year absence.

On the other side of the front line, Kazakhstan called up a list of 32 players for two consecutive away matches in Cardiff and Vaduz, with veteran captain Askhat Tagybergen (59 international appearances) continuing to be the leader of the midfield.

Up front, Adana Demirspor's Abat Aymbetov is expected to lead the visitors' attack, while striker Bakhtiyar Zaynutdinov – who is currently out of favour at Besiktas – has not been named in the squad.

Latest expected lineup for Wales vs Kazakhstan

Wales:

Ward; Williams, Mepham, Cabango, Davies; J. James, Sheehan; Johnson, Cullen, D. James; Harris

Kazakhstan:

Pokatilov; S. Astanov, Kasym, Marochkin, Bystrov, Vorogovskiy; Tagybergen, Tapalov, Orazov; Aymbetov, Samorodov

Latest Wales vs Kazakhstan football commentary

Unbeaten in his six games in charge, Craig Bellamy has made a promising start to his Wales managerial career. He guided the Dragons to promotion to the UEFA Nations League at the end of last year, with an impressive 4-1 home win over Iceland to finish top of League B Group 4. The result all but guarantees them a playoff spot in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers.

Wales’s aim, however, is not to stop there. If they continue to finish top of their group – which runs until November – they will qualify directly for the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico. Their biggest opponents in the group are expected to be Belgium.

Saturday's opening qualifier against Kazakhstan will mark the first time Wales have gone into a qualifying opener without Gareth Bale since September 2004 – when Bellamy was in the starting line-up.

Expectations are high for this team: they have lost just one of their last 16 games (a 0-4 friendly defeat to Slovakia last summer) and are on a 12-match unbeaten run in competitive competition – the best in the history of the national team.

Wales have also won half of their last 22 World Cup qualifiers, losing just two. They made a splash by qualifying for the 2022 World Cup finals – for the first time in 64 years – despite being eliminated early in the group stage in Qatar.

Kazakhstan, on the other hand, had a disappointing 2024, losing seven of their last eight competitive games – including their final five defeats of the campaign. It was their worst run of form in almost a decade, and it was no surprise they were relegated to League C of the Nations League after finishing bottom of the group without scoring a single goal.

The slump culminated in a 5-0 defeat in Norway, where Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick. Kazakhstan then lost to North Korea in a friendly in February, before finding some inspiration with a 2-0 win over Curacao on Wednesday, with goals from Maksim Samorodov and captain Askhat Tagybergen in Turkey.

After failing to maintain the form that had seen them narrowly qualify for Euro 2024, Stanislav Cherchesov was replaced by caretaker coach Ali Aliyev in January. His immediate task is to end a long winless run in World Cup qualifying – where Kazakhstan have not won since September 2013. Among European teams, only San Marino (76 games) and Liechtenstein (41 games) have worse runs.

Latest Wales vs Kazakhstan score prediction

Based on the above football comments, we and the world's leading football sites have given the results of the match.Wales vs Kazakhstanas follows:

• Sportsmole:Wales 1-0 Kazakhstan

• WhoScore:Wales 2-0 Kazakhstan
• Our newspaper predicts:Wales 2-0 Kazakhstan

When and where to watch Wales vs Kazakhstan live?

To watch the live match Wales vs Kazakhstan in the World Cup qualifiers taking place at 1:45 a.m. on March 23, viewers can watch onK+ Sport,K+PMor online sports channels. Wish you have fun watching football.