Since the draw for the 2012 European Championships qualification groups saw England and Wales squaring off, only one game has been on the minds of the entire nation of Wales. After a battling defeat in Montenegro was, the John Toshack era was finally put to a halt. For years, Toshack had been building the foundations for a good young team, playing players like Lewin Nyatanga, Chris Gunter and Wayne Hennessey before they'd estabilshed themselves at their respective clubs. However after two apalling qualifying campaigns (Euro 2008 & World Cup 2010), a poor result to start the third campaign was the final straw for everyone involved.
After Toshack's departure, Brian Flynn took temprary charge for the following qualifiers, which resulted in a 4-1 demoliton in Switzerland and a 1-0 humbling defeat against a weakened Bulgaria, in the first competetive international played outside the Millenium stadium in over a decade. The fall from grace Welsh football had undergone since the "Mark Hughes era" (when sellouts of 75,000 were commonplace, even against Azerbaijan). From being within one game of Euro 2004, Wales now find themselves outside the worlds top 100.
On Saturday though, form, reputation undoubtedly all go out the window when the Welsh dragon entertains the "Three Lions" in a clash of "home nations". With me supporting Wales internationally (although unlike most Wales fans, don't have the intense hatred of England, due to half my famiily being English), the week in the build-up to the game has been fuelled by KG type trash-talk and false optmism on both sides.
However, waking up yesterday, signing into facebook and seeing that my friend Jamie had posted a link on my wall which was titled "Bale out injured for the England game". The news, met with a patented facepalm, and the optmism being sucked away, flooding out early like a Wigan Warriors rugby league (only stadium with an "early exit door"). Wales beating England without Bale, isn't dissimilar to England beating Germany without Rooney (and given that they got mauled 4-1 with him), it's not surprising you can get 6/1 on a Wales win in some bookmakers.
With the Millenium finally encountering a sellout, for the first since, i think, the last England game in 2005, where a very fortunate deflection helped Joe Cole's effort find the net in a 1-0 win for the English. Since then however, undoubtedly the England team has regressed, a failure to qualify for Euro 2008 was met with Steve McLaren's sacking. Fabio Capello, or "Postman Pat" as my buddy Lewis calls him, flew in fromItaly to take the job, looking like an accomplished mafia boss, with an aura of confidence and expectation, all that went the same way as my optmism and Wigan's fans when we all realised , he couldn't speak English.
Although not a problem in qualifying knocking off Kazakhatan, Croatia amongst others, when the England players were together for an extended period, to say it was a nightmare doesn't do it justice. It made Elm Street look like a regular suburban street. The squad claimed they were bored for long periods, and lethargic performances, calamitous goalkeeping and a foul-mouthed Wayne Rooney tirade all added up to a 2nd round humiliation from the old enemy. The memorable momens of this game to me, are when Tomas Mueller made it 4-1, about 20% of the pub dispersed, then when Heskey was introduced to the game, where the team was chasing goals, anoth 30% left. Leaving a once electric pub looking like the scene from "Scrubs" after Laverne dies.
To the present day however, with the main threat of Bale gone, the midfied pairing of Joe Ledley and the new captain Aaron Ramsey will need to be main source of creativity and will need to match Scott Parker and Jack Wilshere step-for-step. Scoring goals has been Wales achilles heel for a few years now, since John Hartson left the international scene, but now, with stalwart Craig Bellamy and Millwall's rising star Steve Morison, Wales may have their best strike force since 2004.
New Wales gaffer, Gary Speed, knows that this will be the best way to announce his return to the Welsh set-up, Speed, who was capped over 80 times for Wales, took the job, leaving his post at Sheffield United. Speed, if he didn;t know already, saw the mammoth size of the task aahead when Wales were thrashed 3-0 by the Republic Of Ireland in the first game of the Carling Four nations tournament (football's wrong answer to rugby's six nations).
For Wales, a recreation of the Italy game from 2002 (yes, we are going back that far) will be needed to pull off this herculean task. When Wales beat Italy 2-1 (best Wales game i've ever been to) with a selection of Premier League players and Championship players met Champions League and Uefa Cup.
For Wales, they will always be the underdog when the "big brother comes to town", but Eli has won as many rings as Peyton, Phil has outplayed Gary (whose finally retired) since Phil moved to Everton.
The little brother has his moment... and the dragon has new fire.
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