#360view: Wales' Euro qualification a fitting tribute to Gary Speed

Matt Jones - Editor 06:47 12/10/2015
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  • Joyous celebrations: Wales.

    The world’s population has more than doubled, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon and Apartheid ended – just some of the historic events that have occurred in the 57 years since Wales last appeared at a major tournament.

    – Bale: Qualification as good as Champions League win
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    Now they are back on international football’s big stage, for the first time since the 1958 World Cup, and what a fitting tribute appearing at Euro 2016 will be to a man who deserves a large portion of the credit for their resurgence – the late Gary Speed.

    This is undeniably Chris Coleman’s team, but former manager Speed’s influence over Wales still looms large.

    From issuing copies of ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ (national anthem: Land of my Fathers) to his players and asking them to learn the Welsh version, to dragging the national team into the modern era of sports science, to the fact nine of the players who played in the 2-0 loss in Bosnia on Saturday also featured in Speed’s last game in charge against Norway almost four years ago. His spirit is still keenly felt.

    The ‘Together Stronger’ motto that has been seized upon by the marketing gurus during the midst of this European Championships qualifying campaign, and has since been embraced by the players and fans, also exudes an emotional aspect that has a tangible sense of Speed’s legacy about it.

    Wales may have booked their ticket to France next year via the ugliest of means on Saturday, but don’t underestimate the significance of qualification.

    The golden generation is a tag the current crop have had to shoulder in recent years but, led by Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey, it is a burden they have carried with relative ease.

    Where other talented Welsh sides have crumbled in the past, they have prospered. The teams that came agonisingly close on two previous occasions in the modern era were arguably more star-studded than the class of 2015.

    True, neither of the teams that failed to reach either the 1994 World Cup in the United States of America nor the 2004 European Championships in Portugal 10 years later, had a Real Madrid Galactico among their ranks.

    The team that failed to beat Romania in 1993 though did have Neville Southall, Dean Saunders, Ryan Giggs, Ian Rush and Speed.

    The team that lost 1-0 to Russia in a 2003 play-off, meanwhile, contained Speed, Giggs, Robbie Savage, Jason Koumas and John Hartson.

    After these false dawns, Welsh football fans can finally get excited about a major tournament, somewhere they have not appeared since exiting the World Cup in Gothenburg back on June 19, 1958.

    Wales had advanced to the quarter-finals in Sweden where they were narrowly beaten 1-0 by gods of the game, Brazil. A goal from a 17-year-old starlet by the name of Edson Arantes do Nascimento – Pele to you and I – was the only thing that separated the sides that day.

    While Pele’s debut World Cup goal would go on to fire the Selecao to their first World Cup title and begin a love affair with the globe’s most iconic sporting competition, Wales’ progression as a footballing nation since has followed a very different path.

    The last quarter of a century has seen them lurch from tragedy to travesty, littered with embarrassing defeats, but all that is forgiven now. After a near 60-year slumber, the Dragons are roaring once more.

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