A little more than three years on from a humiliating defeat in Serbia that shook Chris Coleman so badly it prompted him to consider walking away from the job, the Wales manager returns to the Balkans in search of much more than the point that will create history and secure qualification for next summer’s European Championship finals in France.
Zenica, where Wales take on Bosnia-Herzegovina on Saturday, is only 180 miles from Novi Sad, which was the venue for a 6-1 hammering in a World Cup qualifier that Coleman recalls with a shudder and describes as the nadir in his football career. It was a night when the roof fell in and the lights went out on Wales – literally and metaphorically – as they suffered their heaviest loss since 1996.
Plenty of soul-searching went on afterwards and Coleman has now admitted that he considered standing down less than a year into his reign. “I had doubts whether I was capable of doing it. It’s a job I wanted to do, but did I come in at the wrong time?
“That was the lowest I’ve ever been. I’ve been at clubs and I’ve been in tough situations – you lose a game or you have a bad run – but we didn’t just lose in Serbia, we embarrassed ourselves, and when you do that you embarrass the country – that’s another ball game. I’ve never felt that before.”
It has, Coleman says, been “a hell of a journey” since. Wales sit top of Group B, unbeaten in their qualification campaign, and eighth in the world in the Fifa rankings, one place behind Brazil. Most importantly of all, they are within touching distance of joining England and Northern Ireland at Euro 2016.
With Andorra to come in their final qualification fixture, in front of a sell-out crowd in Cardiff on Tuesday night, it is a case of when and not if Wales reach their first major tournament since 1958, yet Coleman is adamant that Bosnia “won’t be a free game”.
Instead the Wales manager views the Stadion Bilino Polje, where Bosnia have proved to be awkward opponents in the past and hope to keep alive their outside hopes of seizing a play-off berth, as the perfect place for his players to exorcise a few demons from Serbia and demonstrate why they are a totally different proposition from the team that capitulated in Novi Sad.
“We know what it will be like, Bosnia will be right in our face, they’ll be kicking off on the pitch and there will be all the shenanigans,” Coleman said. “Then we can see if we can stand up to the challenge. It will be similar to when we were in Serbia. So how far have we come? This is the one where we say: ‘Right, the last time we were in this position we all buckled under the pressure.’”
Asked whether he felt the players did not have the “balls” to cope with the game in Serbia, Coleman replied: “I didn’t – it had to come from me. I didn’t prepare properly. I was preparing the team in the wrong way. I went under the radar a little bit instead of stepping forward and saying: ‘This is what I want to do, and this is what we’re doing.’ So I can’t just put it down to the players on the pitch.
“We failed miserably out there. As a player and a manager, that was the worst moment of my career. Sitting in that dressing room, the stadium was awful, it was like a clubhouse where we were, there were no lights in the room, the ceiling was hanging down, we’d just been done 6-1 – I remember sitting there and the atmosphere was something that I’ve never witnessed. We were crushed. There was a long way for us to come back from there.”
In the days that followed Coleman spoke at length with his girlfriend Charlotte Jackson (now his wife), Kit Symons, who was his assistant at the time, and Ian Gwyn Hughes, the head of public affairs at the Football Association of Wales, before coming to the conclusion that he would be “a bit of a coward” if he walked away.
Although the former Fulham manager makes the point that it has “not been all forward steps” since he made that decision, the past 12 months are fairytale stuff. Coleman acknowledges Wales have not always played fluently to get into this position, and there is no escaping the extent to which a nation relies on the brilliance of Gareth Bale, who has scored six and created two of their nine qualification goals, yet there is also much to be admired about the team spirit that has been fostered and the defensive resilience that has enabled the players to grind out results.
“We’ve got enough players in the team who can create something and when we get the ball we need to play on that because that’s a big strength for us,” said Coleman, who confirmed Bale was fit to start but may not play 90 minutes after a calf injury. “Equally, they know when we haven’t got it that there is a job that they need to do for us, and that’s been the secret of our success – we’ve conceded two goals in eight games. As a unit we’re organised and we can score against anyone. When we haven’t got it, we’re hard to beat and ugly sometimes.”
Bosnia, for whom Edin Dzeko has a slim chance of starting, despite picking up a knee injury while playing for Roma at the end last month that was expected to rule him out for four weeks, will put those sentiments to the test on an evening when it should suit Wales that there is no need to chase the game.
Coleman, however, has no plans for his players to be on the back foot. “My preparation, I promise you, won’t be: ‘Let’s eke out a 0-0,’” he said. “If that’s the way it pans out, that’s what we have to do. But we’ll be preparing to go and score against Bosnia, we’ll also be preparing to shut up shop. But I won’t be planting that in the players’ minds, that we’re going there for a 0-0. We’re always there to try and take maximum points.”
Bosnia and Herzegovina (4-4-2, probable): Begovic; Bicakcic, Sunjic, Spahic, Zukanovic; Visca, Medunjanin, Pjanic, Lulic; Ibisevic, Dzeko
Subs from Sehic, Buric, Hadzic, Djuric, S Vranjes, Mujdza, Cocalic, Salihovic, Hajrovic, Stilic, O Vranjes
Wales (3-4-2-1, probable): Hennessey; Chester, A Williams, Davies; Gunter, Allen, Ledley, Taylor; Ramsey, Bale; Robson-Kanu
Subs from Ward, Fon Williams, Collins, Richards, Henley, Edwards, King, Huws, Vaughan, Church, Lawrence, Vokes
Referee Alberto Undiano Mallenco (Sp)
