Craig Bellamy believes his Wales side produced a "good performance" in their Nations League defeat against Norway on Saturday.
Bellamy optimistic despite Wales' Nations League loss to Norway
Wales will finish bottom of Nations League Group A4, but Craig Bellamy took positives from his side's defeat against Norway.
Norway won 3-1 at Ullevaal Stadion after goals from Antonio Nusa, Andreas Schjelderup and Erling Haaland, with David Brooks scoring for Wales.
Haaland has scored 66 goals in 60 appearances for Norway in all competitions. Only Harry Kane (70) has scored more international goals among European players than Haaland since his debut in September 2019.
Wales have lost five of their last six games in all competitions (W1), as many as they had in their previous 29 (W12 D12).
Bellamy's side are also guaranteed to finish bottom of Nations League Group A4 ahead of their final game against Portugal on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, Bellamy took plenty of positives from the defeat, with Wales going close to an equaliser late on before Haaland's 88th-minute penalty.
"It was a good performance. I thought there were huge parts of the game where we played really well," Bellamy told BBC Match of the Day Wales.
"We wanted to take the game to Norway here, we didn't want to just sit back.
"I thought we could have been better with our final ball at times. I always felt we were in the game.
"I'd like to have this game again because there was some really good stuff out there at times, but it's still disappointing because we lost at the end of the day."
Since the start of 2024, Norway have won nine of their 10 competitive home games (L1), as many as they had in 21 games between 2019 and 2023 (W9 D6 L6).
They have now scored in each of their last 24 competitive matches since a goalless draw with Kazakhstan in the Nations League in September 2024.
"It's a massive relief. We knew it was going to be a tough game," said Norway midfielder Sander Berge.
"This is Nations League A. At B and C level, we were dominating a lot of games for the whole match and won with big numbers, but this level is different.
"The individual level of every single player is so much higher. Wales showed how good they are when they beat us, and today we had to dig so deep to get the win."
