Ryan Giggs’ biggest task as Wales manager is to lift the squad in the manner Chris Coleman could

Ryan Giggs’ biggest task as Wales manager is to lift the squad in the manner Chris Coleman could

As he finally steps away from the cocoon of Manchester United and the TV studio, Giggs’ job is difficult but not impossible

RYAN GIGGS could not stay in the shadows for much longer.

Actually, he probably could, as a financially independent multi-millionaire with myriad business interests and regular TV work, but if he was to prove himself serious about being a football manager, the wait needed to end.

The Welsh national team is not the job he truly wanted, but having twice failed in his candidacy to be Manchester United manager as the club turned instead to Louis van Gaal and then Jose Mourinho, he has chosen the next-most familiar surroundings.

Giggs has never strayed far from his roots, remaining in the Salford area he grew up in rather than moving to the Cheshire stockbroker belt or Manchester City centre luxury apartments his United teammates usually chose. And despite accusations of being a reluctant Welshman, the Principality is important to him, as the Cardiff-born son of a Welsh mother and Welsh father. 

“This is the proudest moment of my life, to lead the Welsh nation,” he said on Monday, as the Football Association of Wales unveiled him. For someone as garlanded as Giggs that was certainly some claim.

It was perhaps an attempt to deflect the criticism he must bear for an international playing career where he played 64 of a possible 117 international matches between debuting in 1991 and retirement in 2007.  

“As long as I am winning games those questions won’t come up,” he said, and he cannot afford to suffer the same start as predecessor Chris Coleman, who lost his first five Wales matches having stepped in after Gary Speed’s tragic death in November 2011. 

Coleman ended up leaving a huge legacy, not only for the Wales performances that lit up Euro 2016 on a magical run to the semi-finals after 58 years of absence from tournament finals, but also in making a rugby nation so proud of its football team. 

“Together Stronger,” was no corporate motto; the Welsh team had a club mentality forged by Coleman, where Gareth Bale, despite being a global star, was never allowed to lord it over the likes of Chris Gunter or Jonny Williams. Coleman became an inspirational figure, his thoughtful but impassioned press conferences eminently quotable. His popularity with players was evidenced by the Bale-led delegation that begged him to stay on after Ireland’s October win in Cardiff ended hopes of qualifying for the World Cup.  

That was a hugely different Welsh setup than that Giggs grew up in, where he started playing alongside ageing legends like Mark Hughes, Ian Rush and Neville Southall and ended up a lone star of the late 1990s. Meanwhile, Sir Alex Ferguson was disinclined to release a precious jewel to a team in the lower reaches of the FIFA rankings at a time when Giggs’ fitness was a problem.

“Giggs will tear his hamstring again” was a waggish terrace anthem of that era, reflecting that the wing wizard was never able to play at the withering full pelt of his teenage years. His most famous goal, the April 1999 FA Cup semi-final solo run that defeated Arsenal, came after Ferguson had protected those twanging muscles by starting him on the substitutes’ bench; he left Villa Park that night after sustaining another injury. 

He could never become a Welsh playing great like Bale, but that is little to do with missing friendlies; Bale has played in three since joining Real Madrid in 2013, and the last was a 26-minute runout. Simply put, Giggs never lifted those around him like Bale has, specifically at Euro 2016 and the qualifying campaign that preceded it.

The task now is to lift Welsh players like Coleman could, though Giggs, quiet and guarded by comparison to his former teammate, appears more likely to manage in the manner of Mark Hughes, under whom he played his best football for Wales. Like Giggs and also Speed, Hughes was a rookie with the national interest at heart, and he made his reputation as a considered coach when taking his team to the brink of reaching Euro 2004. For Hughes, that preceded 13 years as a Premier League manager that ended just a matter of days ago with his Stoke sacking.

Beyond ambitions of returning Wales to the Euro finals, Hughes’ career is something to aspire to. Having taken counsel from Sir Alex Ferguson, with whom he remains close and who coincidentally managed Scotland at the same age of 44, Giggs has taken a front-line role at last. Salford City FC, and the “Class of ’92” media and business brand he pursues with his old United pals, are being put on the back-burner. 

Confidantes in the game point to an unrivalled apprenticeship, in leading training sessions for Ferguson and then working under David Moyes and Van Gaal, but Wales is where Giggs at last steps away from the cocoon of his playing career.

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