Craig Bellamy’s body of work as a manager may contain only 100 minutes of action, tantamount to a mid-morning omnibus edition of EastEnders or Emmerdale, but the early signs suggest his journey in charge of Wales is a soap opera worth watching.
A sodden Friday evening offered a night of great promise in Cardiff, a communal transmission of a much-needed new energy. There was no grand pre-match introduction for Bellamy, who instead let his players broadcast the beginning of this exciting new story; much the same team but, as promised, a radical shift in style. They attacked in a kind of 2-3-5, not 3-5-2.
Bellamy’s boldest assertion yet came afterwards. “Believe me, this is the worst we’re going to be,” he said, at which point it felt as though he quietly swooped the entire nation into the palm of his hand. Bellamy gave his players the same message. The magnetic soundbites are totting up but the manager knows he will ultimately be judged on results. Most supporters were on board before an encouraging draw with Turkey, quarter-finalists at Euro 2024, and the way in which Wales overwhelmed the opposition only further wooed fans.
All week players had been reminded of what Bellamy was expecting: a willingness to work back for the team, to be alive at set pieces, good body language. “When you look to press, is your chest over your knee: are you ready to go?” he said.
Nine minutes in there was a snapshot of Bellamy’s Wales. The Turkey left-back, Mert Muldur, miscued a clearance and Connor Roberts, who played under Bellamy at Burnley, where the 45-year-old was an assistant to Vincent Kompany, raced to the nearest ballboy. Roberts took a quick throw-in while Turkey were still clunking into a reset and Wales won a corner that almost led to Aaron Ramsey opening the scoring. Everything was done with gusto, with urgency.
Everywhere you looked there were hallmarks of Bellamy’s vision in the performance, Wales’s best since beating Croatia at the same stadium 11 months ago. Wales exhibited an air of authority. Bellamy spent a lot of the game applauding overhead, whether it was Brennan Johnson hounding Muldur or Sorba Thomas, who was electric on his first Wales start for more than two years, so keen to take a quick free-kick that it ended with the ball dribbling into the Turkey net. Then there was Harry Wilson’s tactical foul on Kenan Yildiz, who had slipped the ball through the legs of Ethan Ampadu and was advancing on the counterattack, with Roberts among those committed high up the pitch.
Wales really were front-foot. Before the game Roberts said Bellamy’s appointment was “100% the right decision” after sacking Rob Page, whose four-year reign had grown stale after the successes of qualifying for major tournaments. These are, of course, early days for Bellamy but his arrival has undoubtedly reinvigorated the team as well as those in the stands. “It’s what I like and it’s what I would like the players to like,” he said of his approach. “If you don’t have the ball, get it back. I don’t like sitting off … it’s not me.” Then came the killer line, delivered almost deadpan. “When you started playing the game you weren’t in a deep block with your friends on a field, you were with the ball.”
Bellamy suggested there will be one or two personnel changes for Monday’s game in Montenegro given the tight turnaround. The venue was moved late last month to a 5,000-capacity stadium in Niksic because Uefa held concerns over the pitch in Podgorica. The Football Association of Wales has provided free bus travel for fans between the cities and, given how Bellamy’s first test played out, the extra leg of the journey will only provide supporters with another opportunity to enthuse about the modish, fresh direction. As the defender Neco Williams put it on Friday: “It’s not going to be boring.”
