HOW WALES BUILT THEIR
GOLDEN GENERATION TO SHCAK'S YOUTH LEGACY
DEVELOPED by Gary Speed, perfected by Chris Coleman and admired from a hotel in North Africa by the man who had the plan but ran out of time.
John Toshack is out of plain sight these days as he collects titles with Wydad Casablanca in Morocco, but Wales will never be out of his mind. When a team covered in his fingerprints beat Slovakia 2-1 on Saturday, it didn’t take long for word to reach him.
‘We had a game here so I missed it,’ he told Sportsmail. ‘But I had a call from my son, Cameron, who is coaching the Under 21s at Swansea. He said how it had gone and that Wales are up and running. That’s brilliant. And I must admit, it did make me smile when I went through the team.’
Of the 14 players used by Coleman, nine made their debuts under Toshack, the big man and big personality who won everything as a player and was Wales’s manager between 2004 and 2010. He still has regrets; he still divides opinion in Wales.
He had rows with Robbie Savage, never quite saw eye-to- eye with Craig Bellamy, and had an oldschool preference for speaking bluntly when the new breed like gentler tones. More significant than any of that, though, he also fell short in his stated aim of qualifying for a major championship.
But the flip side of the analysis is that Coleman would have found it a lot harder to scratch the 58-year itch had it not been for Toshack.
He inherited an ageing side and lost a core of senior players to retirement before, ultimately, he made the crucial decision to start again with kids. ‘We had to go with a long-term plan,’ Toshack said.
The legacy is that among the 43 players he blooded, 14 are in the squad to face England tomorrow, including Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey, Joe Allen and Ashley Williams — the four corners of a golden generation.
‘Brian Flynn was manager of the Under 21s and he deserves so much credit — the plan was to find Welsh players wherever we could and he was brilliant at it,’ Toshack said. ‘If your dog was Welsh, Flynny would know about it.’ At 67, and in a rare interview, Toshack insists he is not interested in taking a share of the praise for what has happened since because, in his words: ‘ Chris Coleman has done brilliantly.’ But Toshack also deserves significant recognition for his part in the rise of the Welsh after taking over from Mark Hughes. ‘Looking back, it was a hard job,’ Toshack said. ‘Whatever people say about me, I do know management. I managed Swansea from the Fourth Division to Division One, I managed Real Madrid twice, won La Liga, and I have won trophies in five countries around the world. ‘I can understand criticism of me in six different languages. But you have to understand, the Wales job was the only job where I felt I was working with two hands behind my back, with everything we faced. ‘We took over a side average age 28, a few of the older players retired, and it was a total rebuilding job. You can’t buy or sell as an international manager and believe me, there were some players I would have loved to sell.’ The tales of recruitment paint a picture of a time when Wales could not call on Premier League talents and a galactico. Toshack (left) said: ‘I always remember the situation with Ashley Williams. He had a Welsh grandfather so we went to see him playing for Stockport at Hereford in League Two. ‘I stayed until half-time and then had to get to Cardiff- Sheffield United because I think Joe Ledley was playing. ‘That is what it was like — Flynny and I looking around for players where we could. Of course, there were a couple of exceptions.’
Gareth Bale has gone on to change the face of Welsh football and Aaron Ramsey has added an elite layer of depth.
‘I have to be honest, I wasn’t so sure of him in the early days,’ Toshack said. ‘ But again, Flynny was always utterly convinced. He would say, “I have seen something special”. He was right. Gareth was always such a nice, normal boy. Look at him now, a complete player. Only he can take credit for that.
‘I was worried about his injuries at the start. It became a psychological thing with him for a time. But he could play.
‘Aaron, as well. A super player. You have to ask yourself “What if?” when you think of what we were building.’
Toshack’s great regret centres on the injuries that crippled his side just as he felt they were gaining momentum. After one-and-a-half failed qualification campaigns in his tenure, and a thinning excuse that the brighter future was worth waiting for, Wales beat Scotland 3-0 in a friendly in 2009.
‘Aaron was brilliant that day and Joe Allen made his debut,’ Toshack said. ‘I told Flynny that we just needed to be patient, because it was about to pay off.
‘And then Aaron got injured a few months later at Stoke. Leg broken. Within six months of that Scotland game, five of our players had operations, including Gareth.
‘It was one blow after another. For the only time in my career I felt hamstrung and other things didn’t help.’
By the time he left by ‘ mutual consent’, after one game of the Euro 2012 qualification campaign, he was complaining about players pulling out of international duty. There was also a lingering suspicion that among his few senior players, ‘ some were more interested in themselves than helping the younger boys’.
Toshack is philosophical about how it played out. ‘I did what I could,’ he said. ‘I like to think at least we made it easier for the next managers coming in.’
Four years on, Wales take on England with a squad in which seven of Toshack’s old boys have 40 caps or more.
Toshack, meanwhile, has globetrotted through Macedonia, Azerbaijan and Morocco. He is likely to be travelling in Africa when Wales face England but his fingerprints will be in France.