Wales Reliant on Strong Core, but Wide-Open Euro 2016 Group Gives Them Hope

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: June 9, 2016

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Chris Coleman only ever played with a back three once as a club manager, the final game of the 2005-06 season, when his Fulham side beat Middlesbrough 1-0.

Yet as manager of Wales, after struggling to a 2-1 win away in Andorra in their opening Euro qualifier, he has played with three at the back in any game in which there was any serious defending to be done—that is, not in the home games against Cyprus or Andorra. It is a clever system, one that seems perfectly designed to get the best out of the players available, but it is also one that brings risks.

Coleman’s reputation as a coach is mixed. Incidents such as the one when he missed training while at Real Sociedad after attending a student night—claiming to have had problems with his washing machine—or forgetting his passport when heading to Macedonia became notorious. How could somebody guilty of such errors of judgement or basic lapses be trusted in charge of a national side? But he deserves great credit for the team he has built.



At the heart if it, of course, is Gareth Bale. Of Wales’ 11 goals in qualifying, he scored seven and set up two, making him by some distance the most influential player—in terms of goals scored—of any country in qualifying. Bale also had the second-most attempts on target (24) and the most attempts off target (21) of any player in qualifying.

Helpfully, Bale seems to relish playing for Wales, which hasn’t always been true of the better Welsh players in the past. From Coleman’s point of view, that meant creating a system around him, making sure Bale gets on the ball as much as possible while having freedom to search for room on the pitch. That’s all the more important because he is at his best when he has space to move into and can use his prodigious acceleration.

That means playing Bale centrally and absolving him, as far as possible, of defensi...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football

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