The Kids Are Alright
When Wales beat Cyprus in an under-21 friendly match at Port Talbot this week, the team resembled a schoolboys XI such was the average age of the players on the pitch.
All media eyes were trained on Southampton wonder kid Gareth Bale. The teenage defender, who at 16 years 303 days old made his under-21 debut on the left side of midfield. Amazingly, he wasn’t the youngest player on the pitch, that accolade going to Cardiff City’s Chris Gunter – who at a mere 16 years 299 days old scooped that particular short-trousered title!
But it is Bale who many believe could be the next Wales defender to break through into the senior ranks. The left-sided defender has been described as a “Rolls Royce of a player” by under-21 boss Brian Flynn. It is also rumoured that both Liverpool and Tottenham are keeping tabs on the youngster who this season made his senior bow for the Saints.
The Cardiff-born prospect, the best mate of England’s surprise World Cup call-up Theo Walcott – friends from their time living in the Southampton trainees boarding house, looks a fantastic prospect. And working on the premise of ‘if your old enough your good enough’, Welsh boss John Toshack has drafted the youngster into the senior squad to face the Basque County and Trinidad & Tobago over the next week.
This progression of youngsters like Gareth Bale underlines that in just a short time Toshack and under-21s boss Brian Flynn are beginning to build sure-footed foundations for the future. So while Wales may not be assembling a team of world beaters just yet, there are already definite signs that the set-up is reaping the rewards of a devoutly held ‘youth first’ policy.
This belief can be seen in the unearthing of such rough-hewn diamonds as Cardiff midfielder Joe Ledley (19), agile Ipswich keeper Lewis Price (22), Portsmouth right back Richard Duffy (21), Swansea schemer Owain Tudur Jones (21), sublimely gifted Bristol City front-runner David Cotterill (19) and most noticeably Derby’s classy centre-half Lewin Nyatanga (17).
Already holding the record for being the youngest Wales Under-21 cap, at 16 years 174 days when facing Germany in Wrexham on February 2005, Nyatanga became the youngest player ever to turn out for the Wales senior team, making his debut against Paraguay in Cardiff on St David's Day 2006 aged 17 years and 195 days.
That night he put in the sort of wonderfully assured performance that England’s John Terry and Rio Ferdinand will be hoping to emulate when they come up against Paraguay’s tricky strikers in the opening game of their World Cup qualifying group in Germany this summer.
John Toshack may have had a fractious beginning to his tenure as Welsh manager, but with his vast experience, weighty tactical nous, and more importantly, his fine track record of nurturing youth, only a fool would say he wasn’t the right man for the job.
Those Welsh fans with short memories and even shorter fuses must be patient and cast their sights beyond Eruo 2008 to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. It is evident that Tosh and Flynn are building for the future. If the progress thus far is any yardstick, they’re making a good job of what is, let’s face it, a hugely onerous task.
There may be more blips and bumps to come, but at least there appears some light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
And no it isn’t an oncoming train.
Hopefully.