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VOKES GIVES WALES WINNING START
Vokes celebrates his late winner.
Teenage substitute Sam Vokes scored his first international goal to give Wales a narrow 1-0 victory over Azerbaijan and allow manager John Toshack to breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Vokes, signed in the summer by Wolves, came off the bench to give a youthful Wales side a deserved victory in their opening World Cup qualifier.
Before the 18-year-old's close-range winner, Wales had toiled to break down an ultra-defensive Azerbaijan side who had Brazilian-born forward Fabio Luis Ramim sent off.
The one thing Wales could not have afforded was to lose this match ahead of Wednesday's much tougher trip to Russia.
But when Jason Koumas saw a penalty, and his follow-up volley, saved in the second half, it looked like Wales were going to be denied a victory their industry and confidence merited.
That was until Vokes intervened with his late winner, leaving Toshack "pleased and relieved".
He said: "I am satisfied with the result and the performance. Azerbaijan have improved considerably over the past two years and they provided a very serious test for us.
"We dominated the match and heads could easily have dropped after the penalty was missed. They were bouncing and our lot were deflated.
"But we kept going, refused to let it bother us for long, and fully deserved the winner. We were easily the better team."
Azerbaijan boss Berti Vogts said: "This is a big lesson for us. Most of my players are not used to playing in such a big stadium or on such long grass.
"None of my players perform on anything but very hard pitches with little grass. Only about four of them even had longer studs to use.
"But we have shown that Azerbaijan football has improved. We defended very well."
