Looking slightly dazed as he tried to make sense of all the emotion swirling around in his mind, Chris Coleman admitted he was desperate to get back to the team hotel to pour himself a large glass of wine, take a deep breath and make the phone call to his mother that he had promised. A sense of clarity quickly returned, however, when the subject of next summer’s European Championship finals was raised and whether Wales would enjoy themselves in France.
“We can’t be going there thinking: ‘It’ll be nice’,” the Wales manager said. “It’ll be nice if we perform, it’ll be nice if we compete, that’s what it’s about. It’s not about creating history and leaving a legacy, it’s about keeping it going, keep performing, keep progressing.
“We’re going to go there and we’ve got to perform against some top teams – we’ve already done that in this campaign anyway, so there’s nothing to be afraid of, but going there thinking: ’It doesn’t matter because we’ve got there’ – we won’t have that attitude and the players won’t have that attitude. Probably now the real pressure starts.”
While Wales have had to wait more than a half a century to return to a major tournament, going all the way back to the 1958 World Cup finals in Sweden, where a teenager by the name of Edson Arantes de Nascimento scored the only goal of the game to put Brazil through to the semi-finals, the clear message from Coleman and his players is that the passage of time has done nothing to erode their ambition.
However much their supporters turn the finals into a holiday – and the loyal band that have followed their country through some lean years certainly deserve to cross the channel with a sense of joie de vivre – Coleman’s team want to make a big impression in France.
“We aren’t going just to make up the numbers,” Aaron Ramsey said. “We have been really difficult to beat and that can be really dangerous in a tournament like that, so we are going to give it everything. The best countries around Europe like to get the ball and attack, and that can be quite dangerous as we can exploit that on the counterattack. We have individuals who can make a difference and create something out of nothing and score goals, so we can go there with a lot of expectation.”
It is bullish talk and not without foundation. Ranked eighth in the world, Coleman’s side had gone 10 competitive matches unbeaten before conceding two late goals against Bosnia & Herzegovina here – a result rendered irrelevant from a Wales point of view when news filtered through that Israel had lost at home to Cyprus – and it is worth noting that three of those fixtures were against Belgium.
Wales, by Coleman’s own admission, are not particularly easy on the eye at times and there is no point trying to play down the extent to which they depend on Gareth Bale, who has scored six and created two of their nine goals during qualification; the possibility of the world’s most expensive footballer being injured next summer does not bear thinking about for this side.
Yet recent history tells us that team spirit, which is something Wales have in abundance – Bale was not exaggerating when he said the players are “like brothers on the pitch” – and defensive resilience built on tactical discipline can go a long way in tournament football.
That is not to say that Wales are destined to follow in the footsteps of past European champions such as Denmark and Greece by going on to surprise everyone and win the damn thing next year, but at the very least Coleman’s side could prove to be awkward opponents and a country to avoid if, as expected, they are placed in pot four in the draw.
“I think we’ve got the sort of players where we can soak it up and, on our day, hurt anybody,” the Wales manager said. “In international football it’s not all about running about for 90 minutes like chickens without heads – you’ll just get picked off. It’s about decision-making and we’ve got better at that, more streetwise, in this campaign and that’s why we’ve got results. If you’re playing against the likes of Belgium, with the type of quality they’ve got, it’s an art to get 11 players working in tandem without the ball.”
While preparation for France starts immediately – albeit it Tuesday night’s qualifier at home against Andorra is likely to be more of a party – off the pitch there are a few issues to address between now and then, notably Coleman’s contract, which expires at the end of the European Championship finals. The Football Association of Wales was keen to talk to Coleman six weeks ago but he asked his employers to hold off so that he could focus on qualifying.
With that hurdle successfully negotiated, Coleman, who joked that he would “probably sign a 10-year-contract” if the FAW had tried to negotiate straight after the final whistle in Zenica, is likely to resume discussions next month. “Let’s look at it this way, if I did part company with Wales, for whatever reason, I’m not going to work with Gareth Bale again or anybody like that, am I, unless I go to Barcelona or Madrid, where he is,” Coleman said. “We’ve got a team of really good players. When am I going to get the chance to work with that type of quality?”
While clearly keen to stay on for the 2018 World Cup qualification campaign, Coleman did suggest – without elaborating – that the FAW needs to give him some assurances before he commits. “There are things that we need to change a little bit if we’re going to push on and if we want this not to be a one-off, and we want to build on it – and that will be important in any decision that is made going forward,” he said.
In the meantime, Wales can savour the fact that their ‘golden generation’ – a tag that at times seemed to be more of a burden than a compliment to the players John Toshack blooded before the late Gary Speed succeeded him – have not only produced the goods but plan to keep doing so.
“We are a nation with a lot of hungry players for success; hopefully we can stay at this level now,” Ramsey said. “We have been together for a long time, we have had some really low times but we have stuck together as a team and we have grounded results, and got better with the years. We have finally shown that this campaign and what we are capable of doing.”
