The Football Association of Wales’ June 9th announcement that 78-time capped Craig Bellamy would become the nation’s new head coach prompted lengthy discussion about what the future of international football in Wales may look like over the coming years and months.
Everybody knew Bellamy as a player; the all-action former Premier League forward had an infamously fiery reputation during successful playing spells at Liverpool, Newcastle United, and West Ham United. The Cardiff-born man was best known for his deployment of aggression (occasionally spilling over the edge), tenacity, and physical prowess as he battled his way to an impressive accumulation of 81 Premier League goals.
Those who haven’t religiously followed the early stages of Bellamy’s coaching career—where he learned his trade at his home club Cardiff City before assisting current Bayern Munich manager Vincent Kompany at Anderlecht and Burnley—would be forgiven for believing the new-look Wales team may share similar values and principles to the relentlessness Bellamy so often displayed during his illustrious playing career.
Changing Perceptions
But Bellamy, a young manager who cites his biggest tactical inspiration as former Ajax and Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff, has consistently been part of progressive coaching setups centred around possession-heavy football and revolutionary methods in training, player recovery, and man-management.
The man once nicknamed “the nutter with the putter” (a reference to a golf club-related incident during his playing days at Liverpool) has gone to great lengths to reinvent himself. Bellamy has finally broken free from the hot-headed stereotype that comes to mind when retrospectively thinking of the Welshman’s younger self and instead created the perception of a tactically obsessed, strategic, deep thinker.
Spells at Anderlecht and Burnley saw Bellamy tasked with not only changing connotations around his personality and perceived temperament, but the way traditionally industrious, hard-working teams should play.
Bellamy’s pivotal tactical role as assistant manager in Burnley’s league title-winning 2022/2023 season, saw the Welshman change the idea around how Burnley should play and what it means to be part of the overachieving club. His team adopted an expansive 4-3-3 and built out from the back, a stark contrast to the long ball, hard-to-beat mentality installed by previous manager Sean Dyche.
So, what can we expect from Bellamy’s new Wales team, as the nation navigates the post-Gareth Bale era, with no glaringly obvious predecessor to carry the weight of expectation previously held by the former Real Madrid superstar?
Redefining the Wales national team
The recently announced Wales coach will have to continue redefining cultural and tactical systems as he embarks on a new journey in charge of the national team. Wales, who despite the superstar status of Gareth Bale maintained a strong team ethos during his playing career, will still have to evolve beyond reliance on a singular individual during Bellamy’s forthcoming tenure.
While Joe Allen and Aaron Ramsey did a stellar job of controlling games, particularly during the nation’s historic run to the 2016 European Championships semifinals, the presence and sublime of Bale enabled a level of leeway in performances, a get-out-of-jail free card hidden up the nations sleeve, that simply won’t be available to Wales in the coming years.
Bellamy’s team will need to be more tactically acute and advantageous of the array of technical talents at their disposal, something former manager Rob Page faced criticism for failing to properly utilise. Most notably, Ethan Ampadu, Joe Rondon, and Chris Mepham are all capable of intricately building possession out of the back towards attacking talents Brennan Johnson, David Brookes, and Dan James.
There is every sign this is something Bellamy will try to implement in his new team. Speaking to The Guardian after being appointed as Wales manager he claimed:
“I think you need to move away from formations, we need to start looking at football differently, we don’t play formations, we play shapes. The idea is: ‘Can I create an extra player in a part of the field where you [the opposition] don’t have it?”
This flexible approach to formations is something that’s prevalent in all the world’s best modern managers’ thinking and represents an early sign that Bellamy will want his team to play in a similar fashion to the elite footballing nations and attempt to go toe-to-toe with them, rather than sitting in a defensive block and hoping to snatch the points.
Irrespective of style, Bellamy will ultimately be judged on results and whether he can lead Wales to back-to-back World Cup finals, as qualification for USA’s 2026 tournament gets underway in early 2025.