A crucial 12 months as Wales have to get their young guns into the action
IT is the morning after the night before. The football supporters of Wales have seen the previous day’s spring-stepped bounce transform into a slow trudge.
There is no crueller way to miss out on a major competition than via a penalty shootout.
The truth is, of course, Wales didn’t miss out because of one penalty, they missed their chance due to a poor qualifying campaign, littered with errors and bad performances.
It will take some wound licking. But wounds heal. Twas ever thus.
A full post-mortem will now rightly take place, but, importantly, there is some positivity. This doesn’t feel like the end of something.
This very much feels like the beginning. Whether Rob Page is the man to oversee this next phase remains to be seen, with a post-campaign review now to take place, but what is clear is that there is an abundance of young talent in this plucky, proud nation.
After the defeat by Poland, Page said: “There are younger players to be introduced to this group. That’s my next aim. We haven’t got there this time, but now with the games in June, we can use it to start introducing a couple of the younger players and build on what we’ve got here. We’re a good group and we’re going places. It’s nice to be around.”
That is an absolute must. Wales have to look forward now, confident that the young players already in the squad, as well as those ripping it up at age-grade level, can form a core group to fire the nation to World Cup 2026 qualification.
Jordan James has been a major success story at the back end of this campaign and it’s a narrative Page has clung to at every opportunity.
He was thrown in and has thrived. James, 19, and Ethan Ampadu, still incredibly just 23, could form the base of Wales’ midfield for the next decade.
Neco Williams and Brennan Johnson are just 22 and are two exciting Premier League players.
There are also players, both capped and uncapped, who must also now come into this squad and be trusted.
Rubin Colwill, 21, has been tearing it up for Wales U21s over the last year and is enjoying a good run of form at Cardiff City this year, without the numbers to really back it up.
He has shown what an injury-free year and a run of games can do and is a hugely exciting prospect for club and country moving forward.
Charlie Savage looked to the manner born on the international stage when he was capped against Gibraltar in October.
He played with an air of confidence and assuredness which belied his 20 years. Thirty-six games in League One with Reading, after moving from Manchester United, will have done him no harm, either.
He has five goals and three assists in 42 appearances in all competitions this season. Expect him to come into the fold and flourish over the next 18 months to two years.
Fulham’s Luke Harris is a player Page has name-checked more than once in the past.
The 19-year-old made his Premier League debut against Manchester City earlier in the season before he went out on loan to Exeter City in League One in January.
The attacking midfielder has enjoyed regular game time and could now be ready to make the step up to the Wales senior side in the summer.
Lewis Koumas has shot on to the scene and looks another real talent.
The 18-year-old has had a month to remember, scoring his first senior goal for Liverpool in the FA Cup, before being called up to Wales U21s and netting his first chance to clinch the winner against Lichtenstein last week.
The Welsh coaching staff must surely be earmarking him as a future international.
“[Colwill and Koumas] are two of many that we’ve got in the under-21s that are doing really well,” Page said when asked about the U21s duo.
“[It’ll happen] at the right time, like we have with JJ (Jordan James), and with Rubin. We’ve brought him up, then put him back down with the 21s.
“As with Luke Harris. We’ll pick the right time to bring him up. It’s not set in stone. We’re not going to say that once you come up you stay with us. You’ve got to earn the right to play in that team.
“We’ll continue to monitor them. I’m keen to get as many good young players up to that first team as possible. But it has to be done in the right way.”
Other uncapped youngsters are now certain to be entering the management’s minds. Manchester United’s Gabriele Biancheri is making a splash this season.
Wales U19s beat Belgium on Monday thanks to a goal from the 17-yearold Cardiff-born striker, who has six goals and three assists for United’s U18s.
He’s an exciting prospect who could really motor with his development in the coming months.
Another Cardiff-reared youngster, Charlie Crew, is smashing it at Leeds United. The central midfielder really is one catching the eye and looks destined for future honours at international level.
The 17-year-old is another player on whom England have their eye, which is another reason to fast-track him into the senior side during summer friendlies, having recently been brought into the U21s fold. A really exciting prospect.
Goalkeeper is perhaps the position in which Wales will potentially worry.
Eddie Beach, 20, of Chelsea is someone to keep an eye on. He is currently on loan at Gateshead.
Lewys Benjamin, 17, was the subject of transfer interest from Manchester City last year before he eventually signed for Wolves. He has his admirers. The issue between the sticks must be addressed sooner rather than later.
Omari Benjamin (Arsenal, 18),
Iwan Morgan (Brentford, 18), Ed Turns (Brighton, 21), Freddie Issaka (Plymouth Argyle, 17) and Oliver Bostock (West Brom, 17) have all shown promise and have been praised in one form or another in recent months.
Although this, of course, is not an exhaustive list.
There’s more to come after that, too, in the years which will follow.
Given the furore surrounding the game against Poland, it might have slipped under the radar that Wales’ U17s secured qualification to the U17s Euros finals after their 2-1 wins over both Romania and Bulgaria over the last week. #
That’s back-to-back qualifications now for the U17s.
The U21s top their group, too, ahead of Denmark, Iceland, Czech Republic and Lithuania.
The talent is there and there is good work being done at youth level which should not be compromised.
The ‘transition’ line won’t carry weight forever. A team cannot constantly be in transition.
No one is downplaying the fact that losing Gareth Bale, Chris Gunter and Joe Allen is a seismic loss for Wales, but football moves on and Page must now bed in the new generation, the players who will make a difference in 2026 or at the Euros in 2028.
Qualification for the 2026 World Cup begins in March 2025, which means Wales have exactly a year to get all their ducks in a row.
It is a year which simply cannot be wasted.