Harry Wilson’s first game for his country was Craig Bellamy’s last, a draw in Brussels that capped a fruitless 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign. A few days earlier, Wales beat Macedonia, Bellamy laying the ball on for Simon Church to score the only goal.
At the time, a 16-year-old Wilson was a fixture in Liverpool’s under-18s and Bellamy was close to calling time on a fine and colourful career at Cardiff, but that autumn international window was enough to give Wilson a flavour of Bellamy the player.
So, is Bellamy the manager quite what he envisioned? “No, I think he’s a lot calmer,” Wilson says, smiling. “As players, especially on match day, we get really het up in the moment, the emotions and the adrenaline. In the two games I was a part of towards the end of his career, I’ve definitely seen that side of things.
“Being in camp with him, he’s very calm. He likes to get his point across in a calm manner. The way he’s coaching and man-managing is a lot calmer than he was as a player.”
It is the type of comment Bellamy, regarded a hothead as a player, has heard a few times. “I’m not a dictator,” he says. “I have certain beliefs: ‘This is what I like, this what I would prefer you be able to do.’ Especially [when players are] without the ball, I’m non-negotiable. But with the ball, I am quite caring and all about love.
“I need my players to feel free. I can’t put any shackles on. If you give the ball away and you hear me in the background yelling, then it’s not going to help or improve the player. I have to allow my players to be the best they can be.”
Part of that process has been meetings. Lots of them: 30-minute video analysis bites in the afternoon and evening to drill down messages. Players have absorbed plenty of information but inevitably there have been a few teething problems putting it into practice. “We’ve definitely got the players to play the way he wants to,” Wilson says. “There’s been a lot of mistakes in the first couple of days but that’s just the lads getting used to it. When we get it right and we click, I think we can be a real threat.”
Bellamy’s first act as Wales manager is back at the Cardiff City Stadium, with Turkey the visitors on Friday for the first of six Nations League games this year. The early soundbites are overwhelmingly positive. Connor Roberts played under Bellamy at Burnley, where he worked as an assistant to Vincent Kompany.
“I’ve heard the messages a hundred times before,” Roberts says, grinning. “It’s going to be different for a lot of players, who are going to be doing different roles to what they’re used to in a Wales shirt. There’s no beating around the bush, it might take a few games, a few camps, to really understand and get to a point where we’re happy with how we’re going. The sooner the boys can take the information on and execute it, the better.”
Bellamy is confident he will arm his players will solutions, ready to adapt system and shape at the click of a finger if required. “The opposition go to this, we go to that,” he says. “We don’t lose 45 minutes, 90 minutes, because we couldn’t change.
“When we go into the World Cup qualifiers we’re a machine running, the players have got a library in their head. It’s going to take a lot of work on the training pitch, a lot of work in meetings.”
The sense is that this will be a noticeably different Wales, a clear shift in style from Rob Page’s days in charge, though the Liverpool defender Owen Beck, who is on loan at Blackburn, and the Leeds goalkeeper Karl Darlow are the only uncapped players in the squad. Detail is the buzzword from players and staff.
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“He [Bellamy] will be explaining things and then at the end say: ‘Sorry, I’ve gone on and on there,’” Wilson says. “There’s a lot more risk involved in the buildup. He especially wants the goalkeepers, defenders and the others to stay on the ball and take responsibility and build up the pitch that way.”
Players have, Wilson says, spied their new manager’s obsession with the little things, stressing the importance of body shape and angles when receiving the ball. It is not just Bellamy either. Piet Cremers, who spent four years working closely with Pep Guardiola as the head of analysis at Manchester City, has followed Bellamy from Burnley, where he also worked alongside Kompany, winning the Championship title in style in 2022-23; Andrew Crofts, capped 29 times by Wales, was a first-team coach at Brighton under Roberto De Zerbi and in the summer was promoted to assistant under Fabian Hürzeler.
The appointment of Bellamy was to push for a rebrand, the ultimate aim to showcase a Wales 2.0 at the 2026 World Cup and after that Euro 2028, when Cardiff will stage matches. Bellamy, who won 78 caps, scoring 19 goals, never qualified for a major finals and has been straight about the team’s targets.
“He’s already said in meetings that it’s not just a case of getting there,” Roberts says. “We need to get there and, when we do, compete more than we have since [reaching the semi-finals at Euro] 2016. The only way we will do that is if we listen to all the information and put the hours in on the pitch and in meeting rooms.”
