South Wales Echo

A remarkable qualifying job from Giggs, the bold decisions and why Wales can be a force at Euros

- PAUL ABBANDONAT­O Head of sport paul.abbandonat­o@walesonlin­e.co.uk

WALES’ march to Euro 2020 is a remarkable success story, the magnitude of the achievemen­t under Ryan Giggs perhaps requiring a greater depth of explanatio­n to put it fully into context...

So here goes.

This is not just about Giggs managing to do something in one of these win-or-bust Cardiff qualifiers that proved beyond Terry Yorath (Romania 1993), Mark Hughes (Russia 2003) and Chris Coleman (Ireland 2017), thus banishing some of the demons.

It is about so, so, much more than that. This is a tale of how a team in transition, littered with Championsh­ip footballer­s for most of the campaign and with stellar talents Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey playing together just once, battled against the odds to achieve the dream.

It is only when you sit down and analyse just how far, and how quickly, Wales have come under Giggs that the extraordin­ariness of the feat really sinks in.

He ruthlessly ripped up the side that achieved so much in the last Euros and went about implementi­ng his own style and methods, wanting a team of young players who will get better and are capable of lighting up the tournament next summer with their skill, energy, effervesce­nce and fearless approach.

Choosing to dispense with so much experience and know-how in one go could have backfired spectacula­rly, but Giggs had a vision and felt it was worth taking the risk for the rewards it could bring.

Out with the old guard

So out went captain colossus Ashley Williams, replaced by Gareth Bale as skipper, and who suddenly and unexpected­ly found a clutch of younger defenders – Chris Mepham, Joe Rodon, Tom Lockyer – ahead of him in the pecking order.

Giggs felt they offered greater mobility and solidity at the back. Many questioned his judgement, right up to Tuesday night’s selection against Hungary. The manager was hardly proven wrong.

If Ash was the biggest casualty, Chris Gunter, at just 28, was a close second. Wales’ record cap holder was replaced by Connor Roberts, whose greater energy, pace and threat going forward suited Giggs’ more modern-looking and offence orientated team.

The way Roberts, on the right, and Ben Davies, on the left, were given licence to continuall­y rampage on the overlap against Hungary was a joy to behold at times.

Neil Taylor, another Euro 2016 kingpin, also lost his place. Joe Ledley fell by the wayside. Andy King, Hal Robson-Kanu and Sam Vokes, three more to feature in that epic win over Belgium in Lille, also found themselves out of favour.

Chris Coleman had in the main set his team up to become “comfortabl­e being uncomforta­ble.” His own catchphras­e, which meant sitting deep with five at the back, soaking up the pressure and trying to hit with precision on the break. They did it spectacula­rly well at times, less so at others.

Giggs wanted a more vibrant, adventurou­s side, almost Manchester United-like in their pass and move at pace approach, and that meant bold alteration­s from back to front pretty much from day one.

In came a bunch of rookies. Harry Wilson, from the cold. Fellow young guns like Dan James, David Brooks and Ethan Ampadu were given their head. The defence was shaken up. Pack the side with as many ball players as possible and give them a licence to thrill.

Hungary was a masterclas­s in how to control a huge match. It was almost football poetry at times, Giggs’ work coming to fruition perhaps sooner than even he anticipate­d, with the 2022 World Cup the real goal.

That didn’t mean it was plain sailing throughout. Many fans, the stunning Euro 2016 exploits still fresh in minds, questioned Giggs’ decision to ditch the old guard. As recently as this summer, he had to put up with reports from London alleging a dressing room revolt following defeats in Croatia and Hungary.

Some revolt, eh? Giggs didn’t let the criticism, nor the claims, divert him from the task in hand. If anything he made the team dynamic even younger as he put his own stamp on things.

Of the side that beat Azerbaijan, to set up the epic night against

Hungary, seven were aged 24 or younger. An eighth, Ben Davies, is still only 26.

Mark Hughes once left Wales with the worst-case scenario, an ageing team that had failed to win a competitiv­e game for two years. Under Giggs we have a young side that has qualified, but will get invariably get even better.

The future really couldn’t be looking more golden – or perhaps red would

be a more appropriat­e colour – right at this particular moment in time.

Criticism from the fans

The above, of course, is accomplish­ment enough. But to do it against a backdrop of so much cynicism, criticism and scepticism from a section of the Welsh fan base, makes the success story even more rewarding for Giggs.

To be fair, the silent majority who backed Giggs probably always outweighed the detractors in numbers.

But in an age of social media, those who were vehemently against his appointmen­t certainly made their opinions known. The Anyone But Giggs hashtag which reverberat­ed around social media demonstrat­ed the FA of Wales’ number one choice for the job wasn’t everybody else’s cup of tea.

Question marks about Giggs’ lack of experience, and doubts raised about his managerial credential­s, were perfectly reasonable football arguments. But they were drowned by ridiculous charges levelled against him getting the job, which included accusation­s he didn’t care about Wales, played for Team GB, is really English, never performed well for his country and was only a corporate appointmen­t.

No-one wants him, it was alleged. I’m sure Giggs was also probably blamed for a mix of Brexit, climate change and scientists’ inability to find a cure for the common cold at one point, but hey, when you’re in the firing line as a manager...

Even recently, many continued to insist Giggs was doomed to failure, dubbing him tactically inept and criticisin­g him for focusing too much upon Salford City and ambassador­ial work he does in Vietnam, at the supposed expense of his day job with Wales.

Asked if he had won over the cynics in the immediate aftermath of Tuesday night’s win, Giggs smiled: “I hope so!”

He knows he can do no more than win games and qualify. Even his most ardent critics, whose concerns, to be fair, centred around their fanaticism to see Wales succeed, would concede humble pie has never tasted sweeter than it does this morning.

Giggs ticks boxes for the FAW on and off the pitch. He opens doors, and financial opportunit­ies for Welsh football, simply because he is Ryan Giggs. Hence the initial ‘corporate appointmen­t’ worries.

But he has backed that up with what matters most, qualifying for a tournament, aiding the dream of FAW chief Jonathan Ford of having the Wales branding on the bedroom wall of every youngster in the country. An ambitious ask, but with Giggs as manager and Bale as captain, Ford’s mantra has more of a chance.

Nothing can take away the unique achievemen­ts of Wales under Coleman, whose team of largely Premier League regulars coming together at the right time gave us unpreceden­ted highs. But the FAW hierarchy knew after World Cup failure that the dressing room needed a fresh voice, new ideas and possibly different personnel.

They gave Giggs free rein, probably expected evolution rather than revolution, but what we saw was a single-minded and ruthless approach from the new manager who pretty much ripped things up and started again.

Amidst the changing of the guard, whenever you speak to Giggs he emphasises the importance of the experience­d players, stresses he doesn’t just want it to be about the teenagers and early TwentySome­things. Team camaraderi­e, that sort of thing. He did so again in the immediate aftermath of Hungary, explaining the senior stars will still have a huge role to play at the Euros.

Yet of the Coleman regulars who are approachin­g 30 or above, only Bale, Ramsey, Joe Allen and Wayne

Hennessey remain in the starting XI.

If anything, that Fab Four have been re-energised by the young guns around them. Ramsey seemed to love being the master amongst the pupils against Hungary, producing perhaps the finest performanc­e we have witnessed by any Wales midfielder.

There is a zip, swagger, panache and intent about this Wales team we haven’t seen from previous sides.

Errors were made

That doesn’t mean Giggs hasn’t made mistakes during this campaign and deserved criticism at times. His biggest one – as we pointed out immediatel­y after the Croatia and Hungary defeats during the summer – was to pick a mix of James, Wilson, Brooks and Tom Lawrence at centre-forward.

Not only did that weaken the number nine position, it took away the very strengths that quartet have with ball at feet out wide, running at defenders.

Giggs eventually relented. Enter the unlikely figure of Wigan’s Kieffer Moore, Giggs’ backroom staff unearthing some distant Welsh ancestry for a previously journeyman footballer who suddenly revived our qualifying hopes.

Bringing proper balance and physicalit­y to the team, Moore does exactly what a centre-forward should do. Wins headers, occupies two centre-backs, in doing so frees up James and Bale for one on ones against their opposing full-backs, holds up the ball and scores priceless goals.

He was the missing dimension and helped turn around Giggs’ record from five defeats in his first nine games last year to a 2019 record which reads Played 10, Won 6, Drew 2, Lost 2.

Giggs’ win ratio for Wales of almost 45 per cent is better than that of any previous manager other than Gary Speed who tragically, of course, was only in charge for 10 games.

So, will that win percentage get better, or worse, and how will Wales fare at the Euros?

With Bale not quite the blistering force he was back in 2016, we can’t really expect another Wales march to the semi-finals.

But Giggs is a proven winner and he will want to ensure this young team make a Wales-shaped mark on the tournament once again.

They may be amongst the bottom group of seeds, but even the elite sides won’t fancy going head to head next summer with the brilliance of Bale, artistry of Ramsey, dynamic pace and running of James, flair and vision of Brooks and Wilson.

Wales will have genuine goal threat, a brilliant mix of youth and experience, and renewed belief after coming through a dangerous qualifying group when they had to knock out two of the Euro 2020 hosts, who gave everything to be there. The more time these young players have together, the more they will become accustomed to the winning methods Giggs was brought up on at Old Trafford.

The Wales set-up had been profession­alised anyway, but I’m told Giggs’ demands for perfection have taken things to another level again. What was good enough for Manchester United in their pomp has to be good enough for Wales, he feels, whatever the cost.

Ford and his FAW colleagues have backed Giggs to the hilt and will continue to do so, leaving no stone unturned in preparatio­n for what is ahead next summer. Giggs never made it to a major finals as a player, the one thing missing from his glittering CV, but he has done so instantly as Wales manager.

To achieve that in the circumstan­ces he has done, and in such style, should give Giggs a greater sense of satisfacti­on than even winning Champions Leagues and Premier League gongs at Old Trafford.

Don’t under-estimate the magnitude of what he has just managed. Roll on the Euros... a nation awaits again.

 ??  ?? Ryan Giggs salutes the Wales fans after Tuesday night’s win over Hungary and, far right, embraces two-goal hero Aaron Ramsey
Ryan Giggs salutes the Wales fans after Tuesday night’s win over Hungary and, far right, embraces two-goal hero Aaron Ramsey
 ??  ?? A proven winner
A proven winner
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