From golf club scandals to deep-thinking tactics: why Craig Bellamy wants to change Wales

“If I ever do a book, which I won’t, the headline will be Don’t Google Me,” Craig Bellamy once said during his playing career, in reference to his lengthy and much-publicised litany of controversies and misdemeanours.

Bellamy eventually changed his mind on the book (“GoodFella: My Autobiography” was released in 2013) but his point about Googling remains relevant. It does not require much investigative work to find his seemingly endless list of misdeeds, arguments, accusations and antics.

Such was Bellamy’s extraordinary volatility as a player, some of these tales have found a place in footballing legend. And for many outsiders, such incidents — the attack on his Liverpool team-mate John Arne Riise with a golf club, especially — are more memorable than his impressive career on the pitch.

Bellamy, then, has a well-earned reputation for being one of football’s great hot-heads. “I’ll admit I have a temper, but who hasn’t?” he said in 2004, with some understatement.

There is much more to him, though, than his colourful past. Bellamy’s fiery behaviour has produced so much smoke that many have not been able to see the character within, and certainly not the thinker within. Now, at the age of 45, he and the Welsh national team are hoping it is the more thoughtful side that can finally shine brightest.

On Friday night, Wales face Turkey in Cardiff in the opening match of the Bellamy era. It is his first managerial role, and one that he has been working towards for more than a decade. As long ago as 2013, he declared his intention to become “one of the greatest managers to have ever lived”.

If Bellamy’s playing career was defined by high-profile turbulence (he represented nine clubs, including Newcastle United, Liverpool and Manchester City) then his time as a coach has so far been far more steady.

In contrast to his time as a player, Bellamy has largely worked in the background in these early years of his coaching chapter. There was an academy role at Cardiff, and then a job with Anderlecht alongside Vincent Kompany. He left Anderlecht in 2021 to deal with his mental health, and then reunited with Kompany at Burnley in 2022.

As ever with Bellamy, it has not been entirely low-key. He departed Cardiff after the club investigated a bullying claim against him, and later spoke about not realising the impact his words and language could have on young players. For example, he admitted to cheering against England in front of English players. “It’s not correct, you can’t do that,” he said earlier this year. “I honestly thought it was just nature for me. I didn’t understand how a young 18-year-old English boy might have felt.”

Bellamy intends to bring tactical revolution

But if Bellamy the coach has occasionally lacked emotional tact off the pitch, he has not been short of tactical ideas on it. He has been thinking deeply about the game for some time and was studying the likes of Pep Guardiola and Marcelo Bielsa while he was still playing. Those who know him say he is far more studious than his reputation would suggest.

“I have worked hard for this,” Bellamy said on Thursday. “I am going to enjoy it. This is not going to make me old very quickly. I am going to sit back and enjoy it, because I have worked hard. If I look back on my [playing] career, I wish I had enjoyed it more.”

With Wales, Bellamy intends to impose a more progressive, courageous style of football. He has been appointed as the replacement for Rob Page, who paid the price for failure to qualify for Euro 2024 but had previously enjoyed success by guiding Wales to their first World Cup in 64 years.

Bellamy will be typically passionate in his work and he has not been afraid to change things quickly. Page’s approach was built on defensive solidity and counter-attacking, but Bellamy wants more risks to be taken on the ball.

“It definitely feels different,” said Harry Wilson, the Wales midfielder, earlier this week. “There is an obsession with the way he wants to play. The detail he goes into is amazing. Even the little things, like your body shape and your angles when you are receiving the ball.”

On Thursday, Bellamy spoke about wanting to see the right “habits” in his team. “Your habits have to be good, your body language has to be good,” he said. “When you look to press, is your chest over your knee? Are you ready to go? The way I am looking to try to play, it is maybe a bit different to what they have done before.”

Above all, Bellamy said, he wants to see “intensity”. Time will tell whether his team can produce the required fire and competitive spirit on the pitch. What is certain, though, is that Bellamy will provide it on the touchline.

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