Wales ranked at 10th best team in the world!

[Lord Camomile]

I've had a fucking lifetime of being sneered at by arrogant, puffed up England fans....

That may well be, but this post:

Sad to see all these sneery England types coming in to piss all over Wales' recent achievements.

is written in the present tense, about the here and now, and as such is a bit wide of the mark.

 

[Belushi]

I've had a fucking lifetime of being sneered at by arrogant, puffed up England fans....

The worst thing about it is they've been shit for fifty years, at least a sneering German or French fan has something to be puffed up about

 

[Ted Striker]

Oh what's that whining noise below us? Oh, it's England.

Alignment fail

 

[Ted Striker]

Meanwhile back in the real world, would you put money on them beating Cyprus?

It would be close IMO.

Hodgsons tactics might be foiund wanting, but if Rooney bothers to turn up...

 

[mod]

I must be on drugs.

Funniest thing I've read on here for years!

 

[Lo Siento.]

I've had a fucking lifetime of being sneered at by arrogant, puffed up England fans....

Here's my England fan reaction to Wales scoring against Belgium (and I quote):

wahey!

I dunno where you meet all these arrogant England fans (but then we've had that discussion before)

 

[editor]

Here's my England fan reaction to Wales scoring against Belgium (and I quote):


I dunno where you meet all these arrogant England fans (but then we've had that discussion before)

Hahahah. Hahaha. Hahaha. Great stuff.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Hahahah. Hahaha. Hahaha. Great stuff.

 

[editor]

Enjoy your arrogant gloating.

lol. Even when they have good players Wales are still shite.

I'm glad you're all putting Wales to win, means we can gloat when we beat you.

We're in the top 10 footballing nations in the world, have been for decades. Wales have achieved less in their history than smaller, 19-year-old Slovenia. CLAPCLAPCLAP

Nobody outside of the UK and Ireland has any idea where or what Wales is.

 

[souljacker]

I've had a fucking lifetime of being sneered at by arrogant, puffed up England fans....

All England fans are exactly the same of course.

I'd love to see the Welsh, Scots and Irish (both flavours) at a major tournament and a lot of England fans are the same.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Enjoy your arrogant gloating.

From a thread about an England v Wales match (in 2011) in which all and sundry had been laying into England for several pages. I'm a football supporter not a UN envoy ffs.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Dammit Jim, I'm a football supporter not a UN envoy.

FIFY

 

[Lo Siento.]

(and, in fact, I said England would win, and they did win. So it wasn't arrogance, was it? It was an accurate assessment of the two teams.)

 

[passenger]

us England fans get louds of stick on here, i like Wales well
all uk sides doing well, would be great to have the euros with
all of us in France

 

[editor]

(and, in fact, I said England would win, and they did win. So it wasn't arrogance, was it? It was an accurate assessment of the two teams.)

"Gloat"

 

[Lo Siento.]

"Gloat"

So what you want from England fans is to not be pleased when we win?
Would you prefer to be patronised? "Well, no point celebrating, it's only Wales".

 

[souljacker]

Looks like we've reached the famous point of 'Editors Equinox'. The point where any further argument will be responded to with emoticons, gibberish and patronising guff. Not a lot of point in anyone trying to engage in this thread now.

 

[Lord Camomile]

At least until the inevitable point the hipsters give up on Wales for their next "authentic" fetish, and the team tumble back down the rankings.

 

[editor]

Well, there's a nice set of comments that rather illustrate my point.

 

[Lord Camomile]

/oblique reference

 

[editor]

Back on the topic of Wales, there's an interesting interview with Coleman in the Guardian:

Sacked by Coventry City in 2010, Coleman was working in the Greek second division when the Wales job became available in such tragic circumstances following the death of Gary Speed, his friend and former international team-mate, in November 2011.

The response to Coleman’s appointment was lukewarm at best. “A lot of people didn’t want me. I think there is also the Swansea-Cardiff thing, so a lot of people will never like me – I understand the geography behind it,” says Coleman, who was born in Swansea and played for the club. “It took me a lot of time as well to really man up and start doing things how I wanted to do it. I was doing things the way I thought Speedy wanted. I got burnt badly by that and slowly it has gone well since.”

The first few years were tough. There was a humiliating 6-1 defeat in Serbia in September 2012 and 12 months later Coleman was caught up in an embarrassment of a different kind after he lost his passport before a game in Macedonia and was unable to fly out with the team. Even this campaign started with boos when Andorra took the lead and Wales risked becoming the first team to fail to beat them in 45 competitive games until Gareth Bale – who else? – scored late on.

Everything, however, has spectacularly clicked into place for Coleman and Wales since, culminating in that memorable 1-0 victory over Belgium at a raucous Cardiff City Stadium in June, when Bale’s goal opened up a three-point lead at the top of the group and made a nation believe something truly special was happening.

Ranked 117th in the world four years ago, when they were sandwiched between Haiti and Grenada, Wales are now ninth. Optimism abounds and Coleman, pointing to the “Together Stronger” marketing slogan that has become much more than a throwaway line, is keen to stress that it has been a collective effort. What he finds hard to accept, however, is the idea that anyone and everyone can lay claim to relighting the flame of Welsh football.

He's got a bit of a cob on too:

Even when Wales are in the top 10 in the rankings and top of the group with four games to play, I still see certain people want to take credit for things – people who haven’t been with us for a long time,” Coleman says. “I never saw anybody wanting a piece of it when we weren’t winning. I never saw anybody stepping forward saying: ‘I am responsible for this’ when we lost 6-1 to Serbia. I never saw anybody say: ‘It is down to me’ when we finished fifth in the last campaign. Now it has been reversed and we are top – we still haven’t qualified but good things are happening – and certain people want to take a little stake. Let them get on with it.”

It is tempting to wonder if Coleman is referring to Bobby Gould, and possibly John Toshack as well, given that both men managed Wales and have recently spoken about their part in the nation’s emergence from the wilderness. “Just take a look. I am not going to mention names,” Coleman says. “It doesn’t make me angry. It makes me laugh how people quickly jump on a bandwagon where not so long ago everyone was under the radar.”

Chris Coleman on verge of history in rebuilding Wales and reputation

 

[agricola]

He's got a bit of a cob on too

Not unreasonably in the case of Gould, but Toshack did at least work with Flynn to build a lot of the groundwork for this. That said I think everyone is deluding themselves though if they think this resurgence is down to anything other than the emergence of Bale as one of the greatest Welsh players of all time.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Not unreasonably in the case of Gould, but Toshack did at least work with Flynn to build a lot of the groundwork for this. That said I think everyone is deluding themselves though if they think this resurgence is down to anything other than the emergence of Bale as one of the greatest Welsh players of all time.

A bit. I mean Bale makes the difference, but I think the rest of their starting 11 is certainly as good as they've had for a while. I mean, I think any Bale-less Wales team from 2015 would beat any Giggs-less Wales team 1992-2007

(also Giggs always struck me as a bit half-hearted in a Wales shirt, whereas Bale if anything turns it on more than in his club games)

 

[agricola]

A bit. I mean Bale makes the difference, but I think the rest of their starting 11 is certainly as good as they've had for a while. I mean, I think any Bale-less Wales team from 2015 would beat any Giggs-less Wales team 1992-2007

(also Giggs always struck me as a bit half-hearted in a Wales shirt, whereas Bale if anything turns it on more than in his club games)

Not sure about that - the Yorath side that ended up being Bodin'd had far better players in it, and a better balance to the team, than this side; but you are probably right for most of the rest of 1992-2007.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Not sure about that - the Yorath side that ended up being Bodin'd had far better players in it, and a better balance to the team, than this side; but you are probably right for most of the rest of 1992-2007.

I was trying to remember who was in that 1993 Wales team:

Southall - Dave Phillips, Bodin, Andrew Melville, Eric Young, Kit Symons, Barry Horne, Saunders, Rush, Speed, Giggs.

I mean, talking of balance, I certainly think Ashley Williams, James Chester, Ben Davies, Neil Taylor and James Collins would be aggrieved to not get in that defence... I think Joe Allen, Aaron Ramsey, Joe Ledley and Andy King could also find their way into that midfield.

That said, if Wales had Ian Rush and Dean Saunders up front now, you might fancy them as an outside chance for winning the tournament! (Gary Speed v Aaron Ramsey is an interesting debate...)

 

[passenger]

good game can`t see why the goal did not count ?
nice to see a good away support to.

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Englishman posting.

Fuck gloating, this is just a good Welsh team. Good goalkeeper, better than his club career suggests, solid and well organised, making proper use of the better players like Williams and Allen, with Ramsey excellent and with one genuine star player. Said it before and still true, unless Wales are playing Argentina or Portugal, Bale is the best player out there by a mile.

 

[heinous seamus]

Great result for the Welsh

 

[not-bono-ever]

I hate to say this as a scotchman, but if bales is fit for the finals( assuming they get through), Wales would give anyone a run for their money to the final itself

 

[LiamO]

Looks like we've reached the famous point of 'Editors Equinox'. The point where any further argument will be responded to with emoticons, gibberish and patronising guff. Not a lot of point in anyone trying to engage in this thread now.

You forgot the ban threats that follow.

But enough about that... Great result. Easy enough to slip up against the likes of Cyprus, so the win was all that mattered. Brilliant achievement to be on the brink!