Reply With QuoteThese will be the same Americans who think they're Irish because their great great grandparents left Cork during the famine?
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If anything was more stirring than the way Hal Robson-Kanu looked just like Johan Cruyff when he turned and tricked three Belgians to score, it was the way the entire Wales team found their voices at the beginning and end of their win in the European Championships quarterfinal.
After the final whistle on a rainy Friday night in Lille, France, the entire team, backups included, ran to join their supporters in celebration. There was no hubris, no shouting. Instead, the players joined the fans in singing their anthem, “Old Land of My Fathers.”
Correction. They didn’t sing those words, but “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau,” the name of the song in Welsh.
Robson-Kanu wasn’t born in Wales, but in England. So were Ashley Williams and Sam Vokes, who headed the other two goals in the 3-1 victory over Belgium, which sent Wales to the semifinals of a major international tournament for the first time in its 140-year history.
Wales takes the field today under the slogan of “Together. Stronger.” But even that is an adaptation of the Welsh script under the coat of arms on the team jersey. The original text translates as “Best Play is Team Play.”
And even with a superstar like Gareth Bale, that is the essence of how the Welsh have gone about their business in these Euros. It was teamwork that won the game Friday, in contrast with the fragmented individualism that doomed Belgium’s so-called Golden Generation to defeat.
It was one more blow for the underdogs in this otherwise often-underwhelming tournament. It was one huge statement from Wales (population 3 million) that Iceland (population 330,000) is not the only country that is making nonsense of the notion that size matters when it comes to winning games.
Wales next meets Portugal in Wednesday’s semifinal in Lyon, France. That will be hyped as a shootout between those countries’ two biggest stars, Bale versus his Real Madrid teammate, Cristiano Ronaldo.
The difference between the two national teams is plain to see. Portugal hasn’t dared to win a single match in regulation time, and it has progressed so far by being stubborn and hoping that Ronaldo will do something special. For Wales, the best play is team play, and that concept is being carried out to the fullest by Bale.
Bale does score, often spectacularly. But there are nights, like Friday in Lille, when he will work for others and do the running in midfield.
Bale teased England earlier in the Euros by saying that the English lacked real togetherness, compared with the men of Wales. There was a glint in Bale’s eyes when he said it, an element of mischief.
That is the Welsh. They live, proudly, across Offa’s Dyke, the nominal border between two nations, one big, one small. And their national team, like so many others today, has taken advantage of FIFA’s lax notions about nationality by tempting a few English players to cross that border.
More than a few, actually. No fewer than nine of the 23 players on Wales’s roster at this tournament are adopted sons of Wales. Or grandsons in some cases — Robson-Kanu, Williams and Vokes all get to play for Wales because their grandparents were Welsh.
But it isn’t like Italy or Spain discovering that they suddenly have Brazilians playing in their lands and then nationalizing them for the convenience of their own teams. Wales set out years ago to trace the bloodlines of players living and working in England, and some, like the captain, Williams, had to be told that they qualified, even if they did not know it at the time.
Robson-Kanu, 27, is having the time of his life with Wales. On Friday, with his back to the Belgian goal, he suddenly dragged the ball beneath himself, turned more sharply than any of three defenders imagined he could, and shot the ball beyond the reach of Thibaut Courtois, one of the best goalkeepers in the world.
Robson-Kanu was born and raised in London and joined Arsenal’s academy at age 10. By 15, he was gone because the club did not see a future for him. He joined Reading and played there until he was released after last season.
He had no apparent place to go, except for Wales, whose recruitment policy seems to be to foster players while they are young and persuade them they will get every chance they can if England doesn’t want them.
Robson-Kanu first suited up for Wales six years ago. Williams, born in the English Midlands, was converted eight years back. Vokes, from Southampton, has played for Wales for nine years.
The initiation starts with players’ learning to sing the anthem in a half- forgotten language that few in Wales use. But when one of the most expensive players on earth — Bale — commits to in such wholehearted fashion, it creates an esprit de corps that bonds the team like nothing else. (Bale, it should be noted, is a native-born Welshman.)
The coach, Chris Coleman, believes in team unity. His predecessor, Gary Speed, embraced it. And so, too, did Brian Flynn, a native of Port Talbot in the far south of Wales, who at 5-foot-3 was the smallest player for Wales 30 years ago. He personified Welsh patriotism.
When his legs gave out and he could no longer play, Flynn became a manager and eventually helped to develop the youth plan for his national team, bringing home players who might have some Welsh blood in them. Together, stronger, indeed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/sp...ef=soccer&_r=1
These will be the same Americans who think they're Irish because their great great grandparents left Cork during the famine?
Amazing that no one has mentioned Jack Charlton and his Republic of Ireland team that had more Englishmen in it than actual players born in the Emerald Isle.
So have we in the not so distant past.Originally Posted by Cleve van Leef
Forget to mention 9 Portugal players not born in Portugal either!!
It's ok, they have a special relationship with Brazil! (as do Germany with Turkey & France with North Africa)
I think the article is meant to as a complement to the Welsh set-up and team spirit. Americans generally are not snarky or negative.
That's what I was thinking
funny enough i read it like that
they are talking about team spirit and the players chose Wales at a early age ( it mentions how long they have played for Wales )
they will be impressed that players decided to choose Wales and are proud of it
Me too. I thought it was a fair and balanced article written with a nod of respect. Not often we as a country are written about in the New York Times!
The article is praising Wales.
Of course it is - hard to see why some thought otherwise.
I agree it's praising us, I just felt that the various references of our English born players came across as a bit negative, for example Ashley Williams having to be told he had a Welsh grandparent after we'd gone looking.
I'm prepared to accept I may have been wrong.
That is pretty much what happened though, Flynn (I think) went to watch a player in a match against Stockport, noticed the Welsh Surname, liked the player and looked into his background and then asked him if he was interested.
I get that, I guess I'm a bit sensitive to people trying to diminish our success at the moment
Matchday nerves! It's a positive article. We're making an impact all round the world and it's fantastic.
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