CHRIS COLEMAN led Wales to the nation’s greatest football triumph by reaching the Euro 2016 semi-finals.
But the ex-boss and Welsh legend has not watched his country since he left the job in November 2017 after failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
Chris Coleman has told Wales not to worry about anything other than taking the points from their final two gamesCredit: AFP – Getty
Victories for successor Ryan Giggs’ side against Azerbaijan in Baku on Saturday and Hungary on Tuesday could seal qualification for another major finals.
And Coleman says Wales being at Euro 2020 would be the right time to watch the likes of Gareth Bale and co live – this time as a fan!
SunSport’s Phil Cadden sat down with Coleman and assistant boss Kit Symons to talk memories, Giggs and Wales trying to qualify for Euro 2020.
Phil Cadden: Wales’ final two games feels like deja vu to your World Cup campaign when you travelled to Georgia before playing Ireland at home, do you agree?
Chris Coleman: It does. Yes, we’re fourth in a group of five but there’s still a chance of qualification. We can still pull something out of the bag.
Ryan can take a lot out of the last two performances. There’s a lot of young players but they are growing, maturing and getting better. The last two performances were really promising and encouraging.
Azerbaijan is a hard game. There’s no pressure on them, it’s all on us and there could just be one goal in it.
I remember we went to Cyprus in the Euros qualification and I wasn’t comfortable because we’d been there before and got slapped.
Everyone said we’d beat Cyprus but it was 0-0 at half-time. I said to the lads, ‘Calm down, this is fine’.
With the players we’ve got we knew we’d have a chance.
We ended up winning, Jazz (Richards) cross and Balo, bang. Games like in Azerbaijan, hook or by crook, f*** the performance. It doesn’t matter where the goal comes from, you just need the points.
Kit Symons: Wales have to go all out for the win. If we take our eye off the ball and try to focus on
Hungary then Azerbaijan could be a horrible game.
Ryan needs the players to just focus on Azerbaijan. Everyone will talk about the scenarios and the final game but they have to make sure it is all to play for against Hungary.
“That will only happen if they do the business in Azerbaijan which won’t be easy.
PC: Wales won in Georgia two years ago, Tom Lawrence’s goal, which then set up a decider against Ireland, what do you remember?
CC: I was confident we’d beat Georgia but I was worried about the Ireland game. I knew they would play counter-attack against us.
I knew we wouldn’t have Gareth. I could see it coming before it happened – I had a feeling in my bones. We needed Balo to open the door.
“Then we lost Joe Allen due to concussion so we dropped Aaron (Ramsey) deeper but then we lost his ability further up the pitch.
We had to change our game plan and we got punished.
PC: James McClean’s winner ended the World Cup dream…
KS: It was a horrible feeling. We missed out on the World Cup as players by losing to Romania and that was devastation but it hit me more as a coach.
It all came down to one last game and it was either success or failure. We had brilliant times and great memories with Wales and we are proud of what we achieved but all I remember of that night was total devastation. It’s a pain that stays with you.
CC: On the night it felt like I hadn’t accomplished anything with Wales. I didn’t think about the Euros, I didn’t think about qualifying, I just thought, ‘That’s it, it’s the end for me here.’
We’d just lost and blown it in the last game. I’d been there before as a player on a couple of occasions where we’d disappointed the country.
I’ve experienced disappointments at clubs and it is devastation. But I promise you there is nothing like disappointing your whole country and that was a heavy burden to carry. There’s no low like that.
We went back to the hotel, our families and a lot of the older players were there. There must have been 50 of us. It was deathly quiet. We sat at the bar at the Vale of Glamorgan and there was nothing to say.
That was a compliment to the players. None of them were living off what we’d done before. It was about then and we came up short. The disappointment was absolutely devastating.
PC: You must hope it’s a different outcome for Ryan this time?
CC: This is Ryan’s time, if we do qualify again it is all Ryan’s. It has nothing to do with us, he deserves it. What we did was ages ago.
I’ve not been to see a game since, I’ve stayed away from it. I thought it was the right time for us to move on but I do miss it when I watch the lads singing the national anthem.
It didn’t feel right going to games out of respect for Ryan but if we qualify for the tournament that’s the only time I will do commentary work on games.
The atmosphere at a tournament, 10,000 travelling Welsh fans, you want to sample that because there’s no feeling like that.
We’re Welsh and we would want to be out there backing Ryan. Good luck to him.
PC: What have you made of the job Giggs has done because he’s had criticism along the way?
CC: I thought Ryan was best suited for the job because of his character. He’s got a one-track mind and he’ll go and do it how he wants. It needed somebody like that and I was glad he got it.
Kit Symons and Chris Coleman teamed up to lead Wales to the semi-finals of Euro 2016Credit: Getty – Contributor
You are going to get criticised. It wasn’t Ryan’s fault he didn’t play friendly games. It was Manchester United. Fergie knew he had one of the best players in the world so he protected his assets. The Welsh fans see he only came for the big campaign games but there was so much pressure on him. We couldn’t get to his level. If we could we’d have qualified so we let him down.
PC: Do the fans need to support Ryan then?
CC: “Results will dictate that. In my first campaign it went dreadfully wrong.
KS: It was split with you when you got the job.
CC: They weren’t split, mate. They didn’t want me.
KS: Your mum was happy.
CC: Ha. I remember we played at Cardiff when we were 3-0 down to Serbia. The fans to the left were all shouting, ‘Coleman out’. My mum was at the game and she only hears what she wants to hear.
Afterwards she says, ‘It’s still good because they were singing your name’. I’m like, ‘Singing my name!’
KS: Remember Serbia away, we couldn’t have been any lower. We had to get through that to get to the good days.
CC: The Serbia game, 6-1. I was very close to going, saying this is the wrong time and I shouldn’t have taken the job because we had just lost Speeds. It was awful.
You have got to get through those moments and if you can past that then things can happen. Sometimes you have to get through negativity.
KS: In football and this is not just Wales, there are false expectations. People expect too much too soon. Most good things need time to build.
CC: Agreed. It will take those young players two or three campaigns of getting knocks, understanding how international football works, be streetwise and know how to win games. In my last two games I looked at the young players out in Paris and thought these boys, Ethan, Brooksy, Harry Wilson, will be alright. We played France, who were brilliant and lost 2-0. They went and won the World Cup but our boys weren’t afraid and I remember coming away from Paris and felt better. The young players have the potential in a couple of campaigns but they are not quite ready yet.
PC: It took you over two years before you started playing three at the back, how did that come about?
CC: In the first campaign I spoke to Kit about playing three at the back. Nobody was doing it. It’s very Italian. Holland played it in the 70s, the Germans played it in the 80s, England at Italia 90, we played it under Terry (Yorath). The great thing with three at the back is in front of it there are all sorts of permutations.
We really liked the box midfield. Two holders and two pushing and that gave Balo and Rambo the chance to get further up the pitch so when they received the ball they were in the offensive half. And on a turnover when we lose possession we had enough players behind them to accommodate and protect. The two Joe’s were pivotal.
KS: They were brilliant in that role. Massive. They allowed Rambo and Gareth to do what they do.
CC: The formation suited the players we had and we went with that system. But it took us a bit of time to convince the players. That’s why we didn’t have friendlies for a while. I asked the Welsh FA, don’t organise games because we need that time to get it right tactically on the pitch. We needed to work the players.
Camps, training sessions, tactical videos to show them and they got it. It needed a win or two and then the players trusted the system.
KS: It was nearly over before it started in Andorra…
CC: With ten minutes to go the fans were calling for my head. Remember Kit, you were standing next to me, five minutes to go and we are 2-1 up and they are asking me to give them a wave. I said to Kit, ‘I’m not f****** waving!’
KS: I told him, wave. He didn’t want to!
PC: It seems Ryan’s players also starting to trust his system?
CC: The players will trust you and your formation if the wins come. The wins come from the performances. You will be super lucky to keep winning if you aren’t playing well. Start trusting each other and get performances right and the wins come and it clicks.
KS: Ryan has done well. He set his stall out and wants to play a certain way. He wants players to be regularly for their clubs. But he’s quickly learning that in international football you can’t stick to those principles rigidly because he will have some players not playing at their clubs so he has to adapt to that.
In the Hungary away game, he had four attacking players but no number nine. All the players are good quality and rotate well but there was no focal point.
But since then he has gone to Kieffer Moore and shown he is willing to change and adapt. Moore has been really good. Is Moore a world class player? Probably not. But he is very important to the system to allow other players to play.
PC: Will Wales qualify?
KS: Yes. You have to be optimistic going into the games with hope and expectation. It’s not in our hands but I think it will be because Croatia at home are very strong. I’m confident that result against Slovakia will go our way. It’s the first game worries me more.
Gareth Bale jokingly tells Welsh FA translator ‘you’re late’ as they arrive mid-press conference after predecessor is dismissed by Ryan Giggs
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
